Personalized Learning

Brooks Suggests Education Course of Action

David Brooks is, at least for me, the great explainer of our times. Fareed Zakaria helps me understand the world. Brooks helps me understand America. For someone particularly interested in education and its role in our society and economy, I’m trying to figure out whether…

Personalized Learning

Best & worst of school from DH Lawrence

Lawrence learned first hand of the joys and frustrations of teaching in a school for boys. These two poems capture the best and worst of teaching—the trill of watching the light bulbs go off and the frustration of the questioned pursuit.  I saw a good deal of both…

Personalized Learning

Pearson bets on India and online learning

A couple business transactions announced this week are indicative of three important trends in learning: 1. The shift from print to personal digital services 2. The rise in direct-to-consumer learning services, and 3. The growing interest in and relative health of education investment in India…

Personalized Learning

Choice for equity

Education is political—especially in America. We argue about ends (standards), means (pedagogy), how students show what they know (assessment), scope (e.g., food, sex ed, services), funding, employment, governance, and accountability. Some use a Horace Mann ‘education for democracy’ argument to justify a vision of a ‘Common…

Personalized Learning

Better organized free stuff

It’s quite phenomenal how many edu-blogs, tweeters, sites, and networks are emerging. Just a few years ago we had to rely on our weekly fix from EdWeek and now our inboxes and twitter boxes are full of news and views—a storm of info. Perhaps next gen tools like…

Personalized Learning

Dropouts: Attitudes and Antidotes

I have to admit that I didn’t fully appreciate the dropout crisis while a serving as a public school superintendent. While budgeting for my third year, I recall asking why there were fewer students in each class from 9 to 12—the drop off seemed to be higher than…

Personalized Learning

Innovating or incrementing?

The NYTimes asks Can governments till the fields of innovation? The story profiles John Kao who recently launched The Institute for Large Scale Innovation (ILSI) founded to address three key questions: · How can innovation be fostered most effectively at a societal level (country,…

Personalized Learning

June is the new Friday

Most PR specialists tell you to drop bad news on Friday. Maybe the same is true for end of the school year. We’ve certainly had bad news this month. Diploma Counts 2009, the annual EdWeek graduation rate study commissioned by the Gates Foundation, said “ While long-term trends have…

Personalized Learning

New Leaders for New Schools

Secretary Duncan recently visited high performing North Star charter school in Newark New Jersey. He’d like to see states and districts close the lowest performing schools and replace them with more schools like North Star. The first big challenge is getting state and district officials to…

Personalized Learning

Encouraging results from Early College initiative

In 2002, a phone call from Leon Botstein, President of Bard College, and a bus ride with Cece Cunningham, a Ford funded Middle College consortium, lead to the creation of a $100M national Early College initiative.  After assembling about 8 partners ranging from community colleges to charter networks, the goal…