For the business-type folks in the class, McGraw-Hill just sold its Education division to a private equity company. They think that education will continue to be a good investment.
Interesting that they sold it to Apollo Group. The parent company of UPhoenix seems to be shifting their investments around, having just closed, what 40% of UPhoenix's brick-and-mortar campuses?
Yeah, I thought it was weird. I looked into that--I think the sale is to a different "Apollo" group. UPhoenix is something like "Apollo Group" whereas McGraw Hill sold their division to "Apollo Global Management". I think they are different entities, but it is hard to tell. If they are the same organization, it is definitely a weird sign of shifting investments.
Today's reading about the OLPC project reminded me of Innovations in Poverty Action, a research organization dedicated to finding new, research-based methods for improving outcomes and equity. A very interesting approach.
Interesting EDC study showing positive results with an online Algebra course for rural students in Maine and Vermont. The 8th graders taking the virtual algebra course performed much better and were more likely to take advanced math classes by the 10th grade. It's an example of educational technology being used in a very effective and appropriate way to address rural student equity issues.
Michael Horn, co-author of "Disrupting Class" and Executive Director for Education and the Innosight Institute, has agreed to do a live chat with me and Andrew Barras on Wednesday, September 29. Right now the time is looking like 12Noon EST. This is a great one-on-one interaction opportunity for teachers, education reformers, education administrators and anyone interested in the role that digital learning plays in the delivery of equity to every student in America.
Hi Cameron, If you do get something arranged and want more participants, we could post this on the TIE list, EPLIP list, or the T561 class list... Of course, if you are trying to do something more intimate, that might not be a good idea, and you should just let Diigo followers go :) Anyway, kudos for putting it together!
No Child Left Behind also let states use statistical gimmicks to report performance
” federal financing should be conditioned on truth in advertisin
To shed light on equity and cost-effectiveness, states should be required to report school- and district-level spending; the resources students receive should be disclosed, not only their achievement.
efforts to reduce inequities have too often led to onerous and counterproductive micromanagement.
it comes to brain science, language acquisition or the impact of computer-assisted tutoring, federal financing for reliable research is essential.
, competitive federal grants that support innovation while providing political cover for school boards, union leaders and others to throw off anachronistic routines.
, dictates from Congress turn into gobbledygook as they travel from the Education Department to state education agencies and then to local school districts
it’s not surprising that well-intentioned demands for “bold” federal action on school improvement have a history of misfiring. They stifle problem-solving, encourage bureaucratic blame avoidance and often do more harm than good.
The headline promises more than the article delivers. It mainly identifies the limited effectiveness that the federal government can have. There are no specific "how to's" here and no mention of technology whatsoever, perhaps because that would be too specific a focus for the scope of the article. These are prominent figures in a prominent publication having a conversation that could have taken place in 1980. How do we change that? The absence of real civic engagement on issues about education is the missing link in education reform. I wonder if we can organize public discourse on the internet more effectively to have formal impact on civic activism and administration.
"Yet one of the most significant things Sahlberg said passed practically unnoticed. "Oh," he mentioned at one point, "and there are no private schools in Finland."
This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D."
I love this quote, too:
'As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."'
American's are SO good at blaming everything and everyone ELSE for what is wrong with education in this country. Good for Sahlberg. I might just have to move my family to Finland!
This line caught my eye - "The appropriate use of technology in education-as defined by educators rather than entities driven by for-profit motives..."
Thanks for sharing Jenny!
Great read, thank you for sharing. Nicely touches upon a lot of topics from our course -- blended and hybrid learning, student-centered learning, teachers as curriculum designers, equity, technology as a tool...
Three long-time Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, veterans from Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and Google, started funding education start-ups last Spring. Their incubator, Imagine K12, has now "graduated" its first group of startups. If accepted, Imagine K12 give $15k to $20k to startups and empower them with "dazzling network of connections."