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 This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: education reform.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.