Category Archives: Reports

Graduation For All

January 13, 2010 – 4:11 pm

Here are a couple of very interesting and extensive articles on graduation rates and the need to promote graduation for all students.  The first article talks mostly about the graduation gap between the upper 2/3 of high school students and the lower 1/3, made up mostly of urban, low-income African American and Latino students.  The [...]

By Peter Wieczorek | Also posted in Alternatives, Articles, At risk programs, Policy, Reform | Comments (0)

New Center for Research on Digital Media and Learning

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 [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Education Revolution, Lifelong learning, Online learning, Personalized Educ, Reform, Research, Technology | Comments (0)

Technology’s Impact on Students

June 9, 2009 – 7:13 am

Several recent articles outline the uses of technology in the classroom and give readers lots to think about.  
The first article deals with the effects of technology on students throughout their education. Lenovo to Research Tech’s Effect on Learning: Global Education Research project will study how technology affects education in and after school, from kindergarten through higher education.

Another article [...]

By Peter Wieczorek | Also posted in Articles, Online learning, Reform, Research, Technology | Comments (0)

Alternative Education: Standards, Descriptions, Action

March 8, 2009 – 6:18 pm

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 Environments: [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Assessment, Choices, Ed Alt for Everyone, Loflin, John, Nat. Alt Ed Assoc. | Comments (0)

Valuable Resources on Alternative Education

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 opportunities for [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, High schools, Policy, Reform, Research, Students | Comments (0)

Homeschooling Sharp Increase

January 8, 2009 – 12:14 pm

The percentage of the school-age population that was home-schooled showed a significant increase from 2.2% in 2003 to 2.9% in 2007 according to a U.S. Department of Education report. The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 36% since 2003. The report identified seven reasons parents give as their motivation for home-schooling [...]

By admin | Also posted in Alternatives, Homeschooling, Research, U.S. Dept. of Educ. | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Federal Program Supports School Choice

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 [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Policy, U.S. Dept. of Educ., Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Choice of Education Is Advancing

September 26, 2008 – 11:53 am

Peter Groff, chair of the Colorado Senate wants to see 100 new schools for students to choose from. The Initiative called Get Smart Schools will be launched shortly. Already two new schools will open next fall: Envision and Atlas. Chicago and New York are cited as having opened new schools (55 and 88 respectively) in [...]

By admin | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

International Democratic Education Conference

September 12, 2008 – 10:22 am

The International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) provides some of the most provocative and growing challenges to conventional education and probably some of the most extreme examples of choice. John Loflin has attended all of the recent conferences and filed comprehensive reports on their proceedings. The first conference was in 1993 and most recent was in [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Choices, Community schools, Democratic schools, IDEC, International Educ, Loflin, John, Small schools | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

IALA Resources

July 31, 2008 – 7:42 pm

At the home page, people can subscribe to this monthly newsletter (if your received this in your email, you are already subscribed). If you wish to unsubscribe, send an email to Contact Us and you will be removed.
At the home page, you can search on the 100s of past notes and other resources at the [...]

By admin | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Ed Alt for Everyone, IALA, Intern. Ass. Lrng Alts, Research, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments (0)

Online Learning: Growth and Evaluation

July 10, 2008 – 7:46 pm

In a certain to be much talked about book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn describe how a majority of students will use online learning within a decade. They suggest we must disrupt, that is change, thinking about [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Charter schools, Choices, Online learning, Personalized Educ, Virtual schools | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Radical New Kind of School Proposed

July 4, 2008 – 1:08 pm

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick proposed Readiness Schools, as a radical departure from conventional district schools according to an article in the Boston Globe. Officials said these schools would be “freed from many constraints imposed by unions, school districts, and the state. The readiness schools would adapt to community needs and offer new alternatives in school [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Charter schools, Reform, Statutes | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Democratic Schools Paper

July 3, 2008 – 12:58 am

Arising from discussions with Politeia, Brazil’s democratic education institute, at the 15th International Democratic Education Conference last summer in Sao Paulo a new work “A History of Democratic Education in American Public Schools” by democracy advocate and IALA member John Harris Loflin is now available.
Supported by IALA, this comprehensive 161 page paper aims at persuading American urban [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Articles, At risk programs, Democratic schools, IDEC, International Educ, Loflin, John, Research | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Questions Raised about High Standards/Testing

June 22, 2008 – 12:55 pm

‘Restoring Value’ to the High School Diploma: The Rhetoric and Practice of Higher Standards, a new report raises serious questions about the standards and testing movement as a vehicle for reforming high schools. It starts, “Four themes emerge from the fray: that standards and rigor are too low; that the high school has lost its [...]

By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, High schools, Policy, Reform, Research | Comments (0)

School Choice is the Wave of the Future

June 17, 2008 – 10:43 pm
By Wayne Jennings | Also posted in Alternatives, Choices, Gates Foundation, Research | Comments (0)