In fairness, apparently The Community Agenda for America's Public Schools is the other major reform agenda that has recently emerged (along with the Broader, Bolder group discussed in the last post).At the core of the Community Agenda are a set of recommendations for collaborations between schools and "the community":This idea—fully embraced—would make all Americans responsible and accountable for excellent schools and the positive development of all our young people. Every institution that influences positive outcomes for children and youth must be part of the agenda—schools, families, government,...
TPM Discussion of Book on Geoffrey Canada
This week, TPM Cafe is holding a book discussion of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, which I mentioned a few days ago. I haven't had time to read much of the discussion, and I haven't read the book, but this is likely an important book at a critical moment in our thinking about educational reform. Publisher's Weekly description (via Amazon):New York Times journalist Tough profiles educational visionary Geoffrey Canada, whose Harlem Children's Zone—currently serving more than 7,000 children and encompassing 97 city blocks—represents an audacious effort to...
Study about Teens, Video Games, and Civic Engagement
Via Peter Levine, a new study from the MacArthur Foundation about teens and video games.The lede:Game playing is universal, diverse, often involves social interaction, and can cultivate teen civic engagement.. . . . .Game playing can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life.76% of youth report helping others while gaming. 44% report playing games where they learn about a problem in soci...
Broader, Bolder Approach to Education
Can't say I love the name, but this task force of the leading lights in education and more has coalesced around the idea that we need to look beyond schools to solve the "education" problem. Apparently the website went live on June 10, 2008.It's about time.Of course, it's not clear how they can make this happen.Their two principles:First, conventional education policy making focuses on learning that occurs in formal school settings during the years from kindergarten through high school. The new approach recognizes the centrality of formal schooling, but it also recognizes the importance of high-quality...
Technology in education: a ground-map, part a
For this month's "Monthly Forum" (yes I know I'm late to start), I'd like to get a conversation going about the role of technology in education. For myself, I'm trying to develop a "ground-map of the province" (if you will allow me an obscure reference to Dewey) of issues related to technology in education. This is part of a project that will result in a chapter on philosophical issues related to technology in education for a forthcoming book to which I've been asked to contribute. Allow me to do some "thinking out loud" here.Technology is "the application of science (or knowledge) to solve problems."Technology...
Our Friend Charles Murray Opines About the Waste (Waste!) Of the College Going Underclass
Citing E. D. Hirsch as an "indispensible thinker" on literacy, Charles Murray tells us that it really isn't worth it for a kid who (quite by coincidence?) "knows that he enjoys working with his hands" to go to college. As usual, he uses some interesting data to make completely misguided assertions. Note, for example, the following excerpt, where we can solve the "misaligned ambitions" of poor and working-class high school students not by helping them achieve their ambitions, or by working to change the nature of professional culture so they feel more welcomed, but by simply shifting them into...
The Problem of Schooling Isn't About Schools
Interesting article today in the New York Times about efforts to create integrated collections of wrap-around services to support schools. As I've argued earlier on this blog, there is a lot of evidence, perhaps most comprehensively described in Richard Rothstein's Class and Schools and in Jean Anyon's Radical Possibilities that many of the key problems of schools are really not the direct result of the schools.This is not the old argument partly resulting from the Coleman Report that there is something "wrong" with poor families, although some of what the NYT article notes implies this. Instead...
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