Interesting article about the nation’s schools in this week’s TIME magazine: How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century.
For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the “achievement gap” between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get “left behind” but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English.
Many edtech bloggers have long been posting along these lines. The flattening World. Preparation for a global economy. Thinking outside the box. Creativity. Now these ideas are showing up in mainstream media. Will the message be more emphatic now that TIME says it?
14 December 2006 at 8:13 pm
Thanks for keeping up with the real world and what our kids really need. I don’t know what it will take to get the “people in charge” to wake up to the skills our kids will need to navigate their future. Hopefully, mainstream media will contribute to awareness and perhaps, action.
15 December 2006 at 5:27 pm
When you look at public opinion, it’s very interesting. Public opinion about the education system doesn’t necessary correlate with the report’s recommendations. Believe it or not, most parents think their child will have the skills to succeed — even if many business leaders believe they’re wrong. When it comes to math and science, American parents are actually less concerned than they were a decade ago. And when it comes to teachers, while the report recommends raising wages, our research shows that they are dissatisfied other issues. Feel free to go to http://www.publicagenda.org/headlines/headlines_blog.cfm for more.