Executive Summary. Education is the key to America's economic growth and prosperity and to our ability to compete in the global economy. It is the path to good jobs and higher earning power for Americans. It is necessary for our democracy to work. It fosters the cross-border, cross-cultural collaboration required to solve the most challenging problems of our time. Under the Obama administration, education has become an urgent priority driven by two clear goals: We will raise the proportion of college graduates from where it now stands (around 41 percent) so that 60 percent of our population holds a two-year or four-year degree by 2020.We will close the achievement gap so that all students graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and careers.
These are aggressive goals and achieving them is a sizable challenge. Specifically, we must embrace innovation, prompt implementation, regular evaluation, and continuous improvement. Transforming American Education A Model of Learning Powered by Technology. E. H. Butler Library - Cookie Required. What Works Clearinghouse. Has the OER Tipping Point Arrived? Email Share October 31, 2011 - by Sarah Cargill 0 Email Share Free and Open Educational Resources (OERs) are taking off. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen some major developments from some of the most influential players in education, Pearson and Blackboard. Pearson launched OpenClass , which is a new, free, cloud-based Learning Management System (LMS) for higher education that integrates Google Apps. However according to Google , it’s not the first of its kind in the Google Apps Marketplace. Blackboard partnered with Creative Commons (CC) to support publishing, sharing, consuming OERs on its new CourseSites.
“It’s an opportunity for the world’s educators to share their openly licensed educational resources,” says Cable Green, Director of Global Learning at Creative Commons. While innovative, some observers strongly believe that there’s more to the story. “It isn’t specifically what Blackboard is doing, but that it stemmed from customer demand. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.