future of learning
Public & private investment will benefit edu
The private sector plays a big role in K-12 education especially in the four Ts: textbooks, testing, technology and tutoring. There has been relatively little R&D spending in education, but most of the useful investment has been by the private sector. Federal stimulus investments will accelerate efforts to bring quality…
Rebooting Education: Technology & the Future of Learning
Philanthropy Roundtable held a one day conference on the Stanford campus. Here’s a summary of two interesting morning discussions Panel 1: Kid’s Eye View of Online Learning: Connie Yowell, Michael Horn, Susan Patrick Eleven year old Zach Bonner kicked off the Roundtable meeting with a tour of Florida…
Yowell & Hastings highlight Breakthru Learning @Google
Connie Yowell, MacArthur, opened day 2 of the Breakthrough Learning conference at Google with a powerful set of observations drawn from four years of grant making in youth media & learning: 1. kids (out of school) are learning, connecting, participating in new ways 2. schools are node on…
Google conference, day 1
Eric Schmidt opened an education conference held at Google headquarters. He noted that kids often ahead of their teachers on the tech front and that it’s ridiculous to memorize stuff when you could ask for favorite search engine. His hope for the conference was that we could forge a consensus…
Districts should use budget woes to innovate
The National Journal asked about public-private partnerships backfilling budget cuts. Here’s my response. Public-private partnerships are a good idea; there should be more. But I hope the private partners supplanting public funds are in for the long run–I think schools in many states have a couple more years…
6 reasons foundations should incorporate venture strategies
Foundations should invest at least a portion of their endowments in return seeking vehicles related to their programmatic goals (often called Mission Related Investments, MRI). They should also leverage their balance sheets to provide venture debt and credit enhancements (often structured as Program Related Investments, PRI) to help scale promising…
Advocating for online options
We’re building a advocacy initiative for online and blended learning. some of the goals include paint pictures of the future of learning promote quality options for kids/families guide state and local policy development encourage investment in innovation Tell me if I missed something obvious and if there are groups that…
SES helps kids trapped in failing schools, not school fix
The MN Daily Planet makes a careening series of attacks on Supplemental Educational Services (SES). The primary criticism is that tutoring some of the low income students didn’t fix the schools. SES was not designed primarily as a school improvement strategy; it is an effort to quickly and directly counter…
Charter applications tougher but better?
As the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) prepares to meet in Salt Lake City next week, it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the art of authorizing. I’ve had the opportunity to observe four charter school applications over the last year and a half–that’s how long it takes…
No physics teacher? Emerging solutions
You’re a rural principal and you don’t have a physics teacher. What do you do? Eduwonk posed this prompt yesterday. The simple solution is to offer an online course. There are solid offerings in most states (but it does depend on state policies; there are a…