Thanks for a thoughtful and interesting piece. How you would build incentives for education that provide the public with meaningful accountability?
Your comments about charter schools I read as reflecting an ingrained reluctance on the part of the educational establishment to expose schools to competition within school districts. Without meaningful alternatives, the ability to flee from failing schools, or the sense that educators are serious about improving schools, then yes -- parents or voters will turn to imposing external measures on educators, like standardized testing -- with all that entails.
It may be true that teachers work under stultifying conditions in many areas, and no doubt greater engagement would help. But until there is a greater drive to achieve really world-class outcomes, frustration with the U.S. public educational system will only continue to grow among those who are paying for what now is an expensive and marginally effective system.
Remy, that's exciting! It's great to see that RIT is thinking towards the "sustainability" (to use a much-abused word) of this idea. I'm curious about how you collectively have found the experience of working with OLPC as part of this process and look forward to following the evolution of this.
Rebecca,
Thanks for a thoughtful and interesting piece. How you would build incentives for education that provide the public with meaningful accountability?
Your comments about charter schools I read as reflecting an ingrained reluctance on the part of the educational establishment to expose schools to competition within school districts. Without meaningful alternatives, the ability to flee from failing schools, or the sense that educators are serious about improving schools, then yes -- parents or voters will turn to imposing external measures on educators, like standardized testing -- with all that entails.
It may be true that teachers work under stultifying conditions in many areas, and no doubt greater engagement would help. But until there is a greater drive to achieve really world-class outcomes, frustration with the U.S. public educational system will only continue to grow among those who are paying for what now is an expensive and marginally effective system.