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"This is a graph for the ages, and it comes from a presentation by the New Jersey Commissioner of Education given at the NJASA Commissioner's Convocation in Jackson, NJ on Feb 29." Notice of "Selected Schools"

"...reality is that Free/Reduced lunch alone explains about 2/3 of the variation in proficiency rates across schools." We want Education Transformation in Vermont...address this issue alone. Reach this population... This is both the hardest problem and the most obvious...why is our focus not 100% on this issue?

I would love to share with others my work during my sabbatical on the Achievement Gap at Burr and Burton Academy. I am willing to do consulting work for schools in Vermont about how to address poverty in a white, rural state.

This excellent Horizon Report, generated by the New Media Consortium, sets a remarkable and aggressive timetable for significant changes in teaching and learning due to emerging technologies.

It's been a lot of fun to work on.

Thanks so much Jim for this post. It's a great piece with lots of very interesting links. The RF is investing directly in learning about the two technologies--cloud computing and mobile devices-- on the report's most immediate time horizon. These two, among the others, are poised to take education in new directions. They are transformative, in and of themselves, and it's exciting to think about how they can and will (and do) support the other many initiatives being worked on by RF Fellows.

They're Watching You at Work: What happens when Big Data meets human resources? The emerging practice of "people analytics" is already transforming how employers hire, fire, and promote.

"Academic environments are artificial environments," Laszlo Bock, Google's senior vice president of people operations, told The New York Times in June. "People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they're conditioned to succeed in that environment," which is often quite different from the workplace.

"...administered a battery of tests to a group of corporate presidents, he found that not one of them scored in the "acceptable" range for hiring. Such assessments, he concluded, measured not potential but simply conformity." I would build on this with the statement that current assessment and graduation requirements are great at measuring a student's ability to excel at conformity and irrelevant knowledge sets while doing little to encourage that student's individuality and personal skill sets. Current assessment and graduation requirements are great at measuring a student's ability to memorize what others think important, but not in assessing and fostering the important act of thinking for themselves. Current assessment and graduation requirements are great at measuring who a student is according to an antiquated framework defined within the walls of a school. But, scripted versions of success and knowledge don't allow for assessing and promoting student potential for a world where there are no boundaries or false constraints of whom he/she might become. JF

...about transforming the traditional library into "make spaces"

"...when we encourage entrepreneurship, we're actually trying to get people to the place where they care enough and where they are confident enough to stand up and try to make things change."

IMHO, the transformation of education isn't about "Innovation" as much as it is about creating Educational Entrepreneurs. And...IMHO, that is what the Rowland Foundation allows for and supports. The question is how do we convince more school and district leaders to do the same? Answer that question first and innovation will follow. Innovation is the Product Of rather than the Means To EdReform

"The Rowland Foundation: Teacher Workshops 2011-2012" In order to sustain and extend the conversations from the Conference on High School Transformation, The Rowland Foundation will offer the following workshops during the 2011-2012 school year. By limiting enrollment to about 20 participants, these workshops are designed to provide more participatory discussion and greater detail than that which was offered at the Sept. 22 conference. In each case the host school and its Rowland Fellow will be able to illustrate in practice the principles being discussed. These workshops are offered in two parts: a session in fall and one again in the spring to enable participants to engage in conversations while working to implement changes in their own schools. We look forward to furthering the conversations that were started in Burlington.

Here's a Burlington Free Press article about the conference keynote with Sir Ken, a truly great speaker.

"The internationally renowned innovation consultant calls for transformation, not just reformation, of public education."

YATST schools in Vermont provide one model for youth and adults to engage in meaningful conversations and action about Rigor, Relationship, Shared Responsibility and Relevance in our schools.

"On August 4-6, 2010 in Boston (MA), 150 invited education leaders convened at the SIIA-ASCD CCSSO Symposium on [Re]Design for Personalized Learning. They gathered under the common belief that today's education system is inadequate to meet the needs of tomorrow, and focused on identifying changes essential to transform learning for each student. Following are the Symposium participants' key findings about how to redesign our current education model to a student-centered, customized learning model that will better engage, motivate, and prepare our students to be career and college ready."