Much of the work going on nationally to study and build the evidence base for personalized, student-driven learning focuses on changes in traditional metrics—scores on state standards-based tests and on similar forms of academic assessment, such as NWEA’s MAP tests. This is valid and worthwhile, but it is not the whole story.
In fact, in our minds at Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), it may not be the most important part of the story.
Twenty-five years ago, CRPE was founded on the idea of the school as the locus of change. Today we are reexamining our old assumptions in light of new technical possibilities, changes in the economy, and a recognition that even the most effective schools may need to develop new approaches to better serve students whose needs warrant more individualized learning pathways or supports. This post is part of a series on what the school or learning system of the next 25 years might look like.
Today CRPE released a report that delivers some hard news about what we broadly refer to as “personalized learning.” As it has come to be defined in the field, personalized learning has little to do with technology and is more about finding ways for students to work at their own pace and in ways that help them learn via their own motivations, interests, and potential.
Paymon Rouhanifard has been the superintendent of Camden City Public Schools in New Jersey since 2013 when the district was put under state receivership.
For more than a year, the U.S. Secretary of Education and the president of the American Federation of Teachers have been engaged in a bitter dispute about the public and private purposes of education in a free society and the proper role of government in providing it for all children.
I recently wrote an essay explaining fundamental flaws in a paper by Gordon Lafer, a professor and longtime labor union analyst who published through an Oakland, California–based think tank called In the Public Interest. I explained that the analysis failed to follow even the most basic requirements for a balanced analysis of the impact of charter schools on school districts.
In a recent Chalkboard blog post, Helen Ladd and John Singleton summarize their study of how much it costs school districts when children move to charter schools. Much of the analysis focuses on the city of Durham, N.C., where around 15 percent of all public school students now attend charters.
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