EDUC 636 Spring 2011 Off-Campus
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Technology and 21st Century Skills
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Professional Development
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Human Resources
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Professional Learning Communities
Saturday, March 19, 2011
School Improvement Planning and Data
Do you agree or disagree with the statement above? Why?
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The changing legislative landscape
"The education-reform debate as we have known it for a generation is creaking to a halt. No new way of thinking has emerged to displace those that have preoccupied reformers for a quarter- century — but the defining ideas of our current wave of reform ( standards, testing, and choice), and the conceptual framework built around them, are clearly outliving their usefulness.
The problem is not that these ideas are misguided. Rather, they are just not powerful enough to force the rusty infrastructure of American primary and secondary education to undergo meaningful change. They have failed at bringing about the reformers' most important goal: dramatically improved student achievement.
The next wave of education policy will therefore need to direct itself toward even more fundamental questions, challenging long-held assumptions about how education is managed, funded, designed, and overseen."
I have two questions (you could answer both in the same comment, answer one and ignore the other, or write two separate comments). The first is: Do you agree with Checker Finn's statement that the primary external reforms of the last quarter-century (standards, testing, and reform) have outlived their usefulness? Why or why not?
The second question is: What external reform do you think will have the largest impact on public education over the next quarter-century? Why?