Learning Choices: A Map for the Future, a comprehensive national report, describes the existing education choices in Australia for secondary age youth. It pulls together existing research and evidence, summarizes data and findings, identifies gaps in knowledge and offers recommendations. The report includes a valuable resource of other research on Australian alternative education. This is [...]
Mark your calendar for any of the following conferences about alternatives of interest to you or colleagues. The California Continuation Education Association will hold its annual conference April 26-29, 2012 in North Hollywood. The Magnet Schools of America will hold its 30th annual conference May 18-21, 2012 in Dallas. The National Alliance for Public Charter [...]
December 19, 2011 – 8:54 pm
A fairly new organization the, Institute for Democratic Education in America identifies critical areas for learning that “equip every human being to participate fully in a healthy democracy.” Their website urges reinventing education strategically, collaboratively, and sustainably. It offers examples, links, definitions, invitations to become involved and a host of resources. Clearly, an up-and-coming organization [...]
December 19, 2011 – 8:02 pm
The Brown Center on Education at Brookings published a system for ranking school districts on how much choice of educational programs is afforded children. They argue that options are necessary and valuable in an article and short video. Their rank of 25 large cities on 13 criteria ranges from grades B to D. Their booklet Expanding [...]
The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and the US Department of Education assembled leaders from 20 of the largest school district for a discussion of providing choices. Their report Reforming Districts Through Choice, Autonomy, Equity, and Accountability: An Overview of the Voluntary Public School Choice Directors Meeting strongly affirmed the importance of providing learning alternatives of [...]
The developer in 1999 of Whyville, Dr. James Bower gives a delightful talk entitled, The Death of Textbooks, Emergence of Games in a little over an hour webinar and describes the fascination young students have with creating an alter ego (avatar) and a whole new world to shape and manipulate. Whyville now attracts 5,000 teachers and some 6.8 [...]
Pathways to Prosperity Project based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education released a major new report examining the reasons for our failure to prepare so many young adults, and advancing an exciting vision for how the United States might regain the leadership in educational attainment it held for over a century. Pathways to Prosperity: [...]
February 12, 2011 – 8:18 pm
EdVisions Schools have made their Design Essentials videos available to all. These are profoundly helpful in seeing how a variety of educational practices are conducted in project-based learning and non-course based schools or others moving toward student-centered learning. Here are examples from the category Self-Directed, Project-Based Learning: Self-directed, project-based learning primary focus; driven by constructivist [...]
December 28, 2010 – 3:01 pm
California’s “parent trigger ” law enacted in 2010 permits parents with a 51% vote in a failing school to either close the school, replace the school’s administrators, replace the school’s teachers, or convert the school into a charter. Making the news, parents at McKinley Elementary School in Compton California voted 60% to transform their school [...]
December 28, 2010 – 12:12 pm
Marc Prensky, originator of the terms digital native and digital immigrant, writes that today’s education reformers miss the most important ingredient for education change, namely the curriculum. He states, reformers speak of the importance of teachers and principals, methods of instruction, length of the day and year, teacher preparation and other factors but assume the conventional [...]
December 2, 2010 – 3:59 pm
The National Center on School Choice conducts scholarly research on school choice including such topics as: charter schools, magnet schools, voucher programs, private schools and inter/intra distict choice. The center located at Vanderbilt University is funded ($13.5 million) by the USDE Institute of Education Sciences since 2004 with partners among others at Brown, Harvard, Indiana, Notre Dame and Stanford [...]
September 26, 2010 – 8:37 pm
100s of charter school studies have assessed the viability of the movement particularly on student achievement as measured by standardized tests. One study shows charter schools students do better than comparison groups, another shows they are about the same, another shows charter school students do poorer than comparison groups. Two major criticisms of these studies [...]
September 11, 2010 – 7:29 pm
In her new book The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Multicultural Education) Linda Darling-Hammond share her views on how schools can be improved for all students from all backgrounds. She poignantly describes what the United States needs to do in order to build a stronger, more equitable educational [...]
September 5, 2010 – 10:10 am
Dan Daly, executive director of IALA wrote recently of the organization’s efforts to impact state and national policy: This past June, IALA hosted the Tri-State Alternatives Leadership Summit in Bloomington and formed The IALA Coalition for Innovative Education. Leaders from the following ten organizations participated; IALA, MN Association of Alternative Programs, IA Association of Alternative [...]
September 4, 2010 – 3:52 pm
Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard and well known for his books including Multiple Intelligences and Five Minds for the Future, writes of the importance of a variety of educational programs to fit different students. In a recent article, he writes that after studying various approaches such as Reggio Emilia (a program he particularly [...]