As we ring in the New Year this week, it’s a good time to look ahead to K-12 education initiatives and make reasonable assumptions about where it is headed in the coming year. 2014 was a banner one for P-20 education, and that momentum should pour over into the coming year.
More private funding for public schools. Led by the likes of billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, public schools will continue to see more dollars from the private sector. There is always some criticism in the way this money is allocated (in the case of Gates, his strong push for money tied to teacher evaluations has seen some heat) but overall, I think this is a positive trend that will help a lot of the students who need the resources.
More states dropping Common Core. Though often more reactionary than research-based, we will unfortunately see more states backing away from Common Core standards, at least until the end of the 2014-2015 school year. From there, I think there will be a plateau where states start to see the positive benefits of these benchmarks and decide to keep them. Watch for Common Core support to be part of Jeb Bush’s potential run for the White House.
Better technology in all classrooms. K-12 schools are starting to finally catch up to the trends of mobile technology and student-led tech learning in classrooms and that will really see fruition this year. Federal funding of $1.5 billion earmarked for better internet access in the nation’s schools will also contribute to this tech-forward trend.
What would you add to my list?
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