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Why Education Reform Fails

Education reform fails because it is based on high stakes standardized tests for the purpose of educational accountability.  With so much at stake curriculum's become focused on what is tested.  Students become good at taking tests, but fail at critical and creative thinking.  In a world that increasingly values critical and creative thinking we are failing our students by restructuring our curriculum to meet the needs of a test and by spending so much time on testing.  In Pennsylvania, all 8th graders spend 3 weeks in April being tested.  Instead of learning during these 3 weeks students are subjected to sit through tests that determine how good of a test taker they are.
I highly recommend anyone concerned with education read two excellent books on education reform:
The Global Achievement Gap, by Tony Wagner
The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, by Diane Ravitch

Teaching in a 1:1 Classroom

Student access to a computer for their classes is a necessary step for preparing students for their future. Two 8th grade teachers will talk about the advantages and challenges of teaching in a 1:1 classroom.

The Need for Educational Innovation

The need for Educational innovation is obvious when one thinks about how rapidly the forces of globalization and technology have allowed people to have access to people and ideas that were previously off limits. According to the 2010 Short List Key Trends from the New Media Consortium:
The perceived value of innovation and creativity is increasing.  Innovation is valued at the highest levels of business and must be embraced in schools if students are to succeed beyond their formal education. The ways we design learning experiences must reflect the growing importance of innovation and creativity as professional skills. Innovation and creativity must not be linked only to arts subjects, either; these skills are equally important in scientific inquiry, entrepreneurship, and other areas as well.
Our schools need to keep up.  Unfortunately, politics and budgets conspire to prevent real innovation.
This episode of Teacher Talk explores how educational leaders, and teachers in the trenches of instruction, can use ideas from Alan Webber's Rules of Thumb business book to innovate the traditional public school system.