Sir Ken Robinson: Transform Education? Yes, We Must As the new members of 111th Congress wander through the building looking for their desks and lockers, it may feel for some of them like the first day at school. They should hold on to that feeling. One of the biggest challenges they face is sorting out American education. Given the recession, the dire situation in the Middle East and the general state of the planet, education is probably not at the top of their to-do list. President-elect Obama swayed the nation on a promise of change and the renewal of the American Dream. All of this is the work of education. My family and I moved to America almost eight years ago. President-elect Obama has said that NCLB was well intentioned, and it was. I said that the premise of the act is flawed. To face the future, America needs to celebrate and develop the diverse talents of all of its people -- young and old alike. I'm always struck by how many adults have no idea what their real talents are, or whether they have any at all.
Dave's Educational Blog Diane Ravitch (DianeRavitch) Diane Ravitch's blog Stephen Downes: Fairness and Equity in Education The Idea of Fairness If we were asking questions of the children in a classroom, we wouldn't ask just one person over and over, right? We would want to spread the questioning around. Or if we were running a class debate, we wouldn't let just one student speak for the entire session, right? We would want to ensure that a number of different voices were heard. We wouldn't design our tests so that only one person could pass. There is growing recognition that there might be something to this principle. The United States came out only in the middle of the PISA rankings. As the PISA authors noted, poverty itself wasn't the problem. All of that said, while it is all very well to appeal to some sort of principle of fairness, the fact remains that there is no widely accepted economy of fairness. Efforts to ground the principle in moral or philosophical arguments are equally futile. The Golden Rule allows the powerful to legitimize their power, and does not promote fairness at all.