Personalized Learning
The best school operators in the country
After spending two days with the best charter school operators in the country, I was impressed by three things: 1. Passion: the room was packed with smart hard working teachers, principals, and network leaders passionate about improving the life choices of low income and minority…
Personalized Learning
Charter heroes at Charter School Growth Fund
Charter heroes Mike Feinberg, Chris Barbic, and Ref Rodriguez participated on a Kevin Hall moderated kick off panel at a Charter School Growth Fund meeting in Denver. On the subject of growth: MF: Growth is a function of people quality not powerpoint quality CB:…
Personalized Learning
EdNet (and Chicago) reflections
With the biggest crowd ever, the mood at EdNet was much different than last year. There were lots of start-ups and more funders and investment bankers than ever. The agenda was all about digital learning (we may finally be moving past thinking about EdTech on the periphery and…
Personalized Learning
Improving college completion
There are some obvious strategies for improving college completion starting with improved preparation and a stronger college advising and support programs. Less obvious but perhaps most powerful would be improving completion incentives for colleges. They currently have perverse incentives to churn-and-burn underclassman. The lower division is…
Personalized Learning
What will be the ‘shipping container’ of Edu2.0?
Forty years ago the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted a standard size container and it revolutionized shipping—investment in common infrastructure went up and the cost of goods shipped went down. Wal-Mart and globalization happened. We need a digital content standard to launch the second…
Personalized Learning
What if Charles Murray is right?
Murray has made a career of the contrary. He just loves to piss people off and that can make it easy to miss or ignore important truth in his suppositions. AEI reviewed his newest book, Real Education, and outlined his four points: Ability varies…
Personalized Learning
Preparation is the new equity issue
The terminal indicator of the American achievement gap is the graduation gap and its cousin the college gap. African American and Hispanic students are twice as likely to drop out of high school than white students and less than half as likely to earn a college degree.
Personalized Learning
Progress with Partnership for 21st Century Skills?
The National Journal asked whether after a decade and lots of supporters the Partnership for 21st Century Skills had succeeded. As a number of C21 critics have pointed out, good schools have long taught critical thinking and enough content to think about. Â What’s missing from this thread is the…
Personalized Learning
2 speeches
The text of President Obama ‘controversial’ speech is out. It’s full of old fashion values. He’ll suggests that students should fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put…
Personalized Learning
Education Needs to be Turned on Its Head
A Leo Babauta post (via Milton Ramirez tweet) recites the failings of the age cohort-batch process-compliance rewarding system knows worldwide.  The system fails to prepare about two-thirds of American kids–all but the compliant and well supported.  And, as Leo points out, while we talk about innovation and creativity, we still have…