School & District Management Opinion

The Futures of School Reform

The members of the Futures of School Reform Group represented leading thinkers from the academic, business, philanthropic, government, and public-policy sectors. Organized by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, they contributed to a seven-part opinion series on education reform published in Education Week’s Commentary pages. In this opinion series, they expanded upon and discussed their visions for the future of schools. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: education reform.

Education Opinion Two Avenues for Change
The bottom line is professional development is likely to be a lot better if teachers are driving the details around what they receive based on a good understanding of their own weaknesses and a desire to address them.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 25, 2011
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3 min read
Education Opinion A Case for Educational Markets From the Left
This article makes a case why even those on the left should see a role for educational markets.
Jal Mehta, April 22, 2011
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4 min read
Education Opinion Choice as a Moderating Move to the Center
The challenge is for districts and states to somehow escape from their institutional pasts and to move toward centrist solutions that strike a better, more reasonable, more productive balance between government and markets.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 21, 2011
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3 min read
Education Opinion Future Shock: Markets Are Powerful, But Not Enough
As we move toward a more mixed or market-oriented and customized school system policymakers must be intentional and thoughtful about how policies governing our public schools are constructed.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 20, 2011
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3 min read
Education Opinion Barriers to Improvement
Public education wants and needs new ideas, but it blocks their implementation and prevents their getting a real test. Some market elements are essential preconditions for innovation in public education.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 19, 2011
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1 min read
Education Opinion Market Forces Strengthen Public Education
K-12 education can't afford to be an institution apart from all others and can't hope to reach its goals without using market forces.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 18, 2011
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2 min read
Education Opinion Needed: A Reversal of Figure/Ground
Unless we place in the foreground the individuals and society that we long for, all the rest will be in vain.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 15, 2011
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2 min read
Education Opinion The Elephant in the Room of 21st Century Learning
There are multiple 21st century frameworks addressing the broad skills or competencies important to engaging our small/big world; however, there is an "elephant in the room," a big conspicuous but largely undiscussed problem: What should we do with tired content?
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 14, 2011
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3 min read
Education Opinion System Transformation, Whole Child Focus, and Community Design
The author offers three ways to transform the education system from the inside-out--a committed superintendent who 'gets it'; a 'dream team' support network; and community design and implementation.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 13, 2011
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2 min read
Education Opinion 21st Century Education Requires Lifewide Learning
New media are at the heart of innovative models for education; empowering new forms of learning and teaching while simultaneously contributing to the obsolescence of traditional schools/universities as educational vehicles.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 12, 2011
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3 min read
Education Opinion The Future of Learning
This week we introduce a complementary initiative at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Future of Learning, designed to explore what needs to change about how and what students learn to be confident 21st century citizens? Contributions will come from Jennifer Thomson, Christopher Dede, David Perkins, Julie Wilson, and Howard Gardner.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 11, 2011
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2 min read
Education Opinion Next Up
The blog this week will feature contributions from Harvard's Future of Learning initiative.
Jal Mehta, April 10, 2011
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1 min read
Education Opinion Differentiation and Inequality in Cross-National Perspective
Ability grouping is problematic because it does not boost productivity in the school as a whole, but it does tend to magnify inequality.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 7, 2011
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4 min read
Education Opinion Assessment for Learning
Other countries offer examples that can help us design assessments that are richer and deeper and require students not just to memorize concepts, but to solve problems and demonstrate their readiness for college and careers. In Scotland, implementation guidelines for this policy stress the importance of assessing students in varied ways and across multiple domains, including breadth as well as depth of knowledge and testing students' abilities to apply knowledge to new situations.
International Perspectives on Education Reform Group, April 6, 2011
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3 min read
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