10 US education reformers that will impact 2010
Arne Duncan is taking advantage of an unbelievably large budget and pushing a tough reform agenda targeting low-income kids and struggling schools. While he’ll have his hands full with reauthorization, he has assembled a top notch team. Joanne Weiss leads the mother of all grant program—Race to…
Augmented Reality will improve field trips
eSchool News posted a update on Augmented Reality. Here’s a couple snippets: This computer-enhanced view of the world is not just available to cyborgs in science-fiction movies. Increasingly, it can be found on cell phones, for free or on the cheap, through programs that provide “augmented reality.”…
How Students Show What They Know
My wife appreciates psychodrama (today we’ll see another triumphant women in a Nancy Meyer movie). I, on the other hand, enjoy a juicy psychometric-drama. And we have a thriller in the making. A couple agreements in the next few weeks will set the stage for the next decade of testing…
The Edu-Entrepreneurs bargain
The sun set at 4:22pm at latitude 47.3. It will set about a minute later tomorrow. The days are finally getting longer again. We also turned the corner on the Great Recession; at least the leading indicators look that way. That is little reassurance to the 20% of the…
How teacher pay should work
Kim Marshall’s December 16 EdWeek commentary attempts to “demolish the argument for individual merit pay.” He makes good points that suggest that individual bonuses based solely on value-added test scores are not a good idea. He suggests, instead, team-based bonuses and more pay for master teachers. There’s an…
Why all students have access to online learning
Rereading iNACOL policy report that suggests six reasons to close the online learning deal in the handful of states still prohibiting the internet (at least for learning): Public and available Academically and demographically blind: flexible and accessible for all students Engaging: often more engaging than traditional courses (and it…
Fix or replace Dropout Factories
EdWeek ran a useful commentary by friends from JFF and Johns Hopkins that outlined the range of challenges faced by states in fixing the roughly 2,000 high schools with graduation rates below 60%. Like the authors, I appreciate Secretary Duncan’s laser focus on attacking chronic failure–something NCLB…
7 charter authorizing strategies for scale & quality
I forgot an important 6th charter authorizing path that will continue to grow in importance–conversions. With budget cuts and dysfunctional districts, more public schools are contemplating charter conversion. To guard against ‘take the money and run’ (previously common in GA and elsewhere) where schools become charter in name only, a…
Parent Trigger back from grave in CA
The Parent Trigger–the power to for a majority of parents to choose the best option for their kids–was dead last week. It was given new life by the CA senate today by a one vote majority. It faces an uphill battle in the Assembly where a member said, “This is…
The Great Inflection & what it means for Edu-Philanthropy
We’re at a turning point. Thirty years ago, Fritjof Capra, who paved the systems thinking pathway for Senge and Wheatley, warned that mankind always sees itself at a turning point. But this time it’s really true. Expanded access to broadband, cheap…