April 19, 2010 – 12:00 pm
I’ve waited for years for this marvelous book, Lives of Passion, School of Hope: How One Public School Ignites a Lifelong Love of Learning. It tells a story of a K-12 progressive school (Jefferson County Open School, Colorado) that combined the best features from research and practice such as: strong advisory system, personal learning plan, [...]
November 9, 2009 – 6:44 pm
There’s little doubt that the Internet will transform schooling (read choices) and how students learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. A newly-created Digital Media and Learning Research Hub at the University of California-Irvine will explore the impact of digital media on learning and its potential for transforming education. The Center is funded by a $2.97 million grant from [...]
September 15, 2009 – 4:21 pm
David Bly, former President of the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs and a co-founder of IALA has written a powerful booklet, The Middle Class Amendment, which you can read online. Bly, a Representative from Northfield, is a member of the Minnesota Legislature. While IALA does not make political endorsements, we think the topic of interest to alternative educators [...]
Since the early 1990s when the nation’s first charter school was opened in St. Paul, MN, the scope and availability of school-based options to parents has steadily expanded in the U.S. and abroad. No longer can traditional education be a public monopoly. Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice (NCSC), this 648 page ($115) Handbook of [...]
Several helpful documents are available for describing, implementing and evaluating alternative education programs. The first three refer to alternative education broadly, that is, providing a choice of programs for all students. The last one is more attuned to at-risk students. Ray Morley and the Iowa Association of Alternative Education prepared a thoughtful document, Alternative Learning [...]
February 26, 2009 – 5:01 pm
Here are useful resources with links to other sites: Brief descriptions in Summary of Educational Models include: Accelerated Schools, America’s Choice, Big Picture, Communities in Schools, EdVisions, Job Corps, Youth Build and 17 more. The Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) is a network of youth development organizations with over 258 sites nationwide for creating educational [...]
January 11, 2009 – 1:01 pm
We recently created the outline below showing the kinds of choices available to students in some parts of Minnesota. This may be similar to other states. By no means are all of these alternatives available to all students in all places but it represents a major shift in what parents had to choose from in [...]
December 6, 2008 – 5:21 pm
The U. S. Department of Education’s Office of Voluntary Public School Choice program supports States and school districts in efforts to establish or expand a public school choice program. It supports efforts to establish or expand intradistrict, interdistrict, and open enrollment public school choice programs to provide parents, particularly parents whose children attend low-performing public [...]
October 9, 2008 – 8:10 pm
IALA promotes educational choices and there would not be the compelling call for change in district schools if they engaged students more. Here are my comments about an amazing book by an extraordinary teacher in a most democratic program. If Holden Caulfield Were In My Classroom: Inspiring Love, Creativity and Intelligence in Middle School Students [...]
October 6, 2008 – 9:32 am
We thought you might like this favorite piece from 1971 and consider its relevance for today. Recalled for Revision William C. Miller Dear Parents of Our Graduates: As you are aware, one of your offspring was graduated from our high school this June. Since that time, it has been brought to our attention that certain [...]
August 26, 2008 – 11:10 am
The Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) is providing courses on how to start an alternative school and on the history of alternative education. Start a School 101 begins September 15, 2008 and is taught by Jerry Mintz among others. The Theory and History of Educational Alternatives is taught by Ron Miller and will also start [...]
August 26, 2008 – 10:00 am
Dana Bennis has started a website specifically devoted to promoting democratic education and can be reached personally at dana.bennis@yahoo.com. Dana has a long standing interest in democratic education having studied it in several countries and being part of a democratic school. He advocates giving students voice in decisions about their education and their school’s operation. You will [...]
If you think our website has changed, your perceptions are correct. We’ve changed our platform to WordPress for an update and better control. Please have patience as we work out some bugs. We emphasize that the same huge body of resource material is still available on this website. You will notice that the left panel (at [...]