A new resource from KnowledgeWorks offers guidance on influencing the future of learning in turbulent times. As we navigate uncertainty, leaders at all levels of education and throughout the community need to grapple with key issues and the tensions that they raise as they strive to meet learners’ needs in virtual, hybrid, and place-based settings. Read more about Education in the Balance: Tensions Affecting Education’s Future[…]
Every day, educators, advocates, and families strive to ensure that our schools prepare all students to excel academically and thrive in life. To realize that ambitious goal, we must ensure that our education sector functions at all levels as a learning system. Too often, though, a culture of compliance and a desire to preserve the Read more about Transforming Education into a Learning System[…]
Attendance looks dramatically different in the COVID-19 era of remote and online learning, and states are grappling with setting policies that account for what attendance should mean and what it should look like. The Aurora Institute has responded to multiple requests for technical assistance on this subject with a new issue brief, Determining Attendance and Read more about Determining Attendance and Alternatives to Seat-Time[…]
Education First, the NewSchools Venture Fund, and the Broad Center have partnered to release the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) Toolkit. This research-backed toolkit is designed to help districts, and CIOs, understand why a CIO is a critical cabinet-level role and what should be expected from one. The CIO Toolkit was developed for those currently in, Read more about Chief Innovation Officer Toolkit[…]
Saul Alinsky, American activist, once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Across the globe, educators are thinking about how to leverage the current upheaval in the education field to promote long-term innovation and positive change. In Core Education’s November issue brief, we explore recommended actions to guide transformation of education systems after Read more about November Issue Brief: School and System Innovation[…]
In the latest paper by Education Resource Strategies (ERS), authors explore how a whole-system approach to continuous improvement can help districts chart a course to equity and excellence this pandemic school year. ERS’ new paper, Uncharted Waters, makes the case that the key to districts making progress towards equity and excellence amidst so much uncertainty Read more about Uncharted Waters[…]
Writing for Getting Smart, Tom Vander Ark outlines 15 opportunities to improve learning through invention. Excerpts of the piece appear below: The education and development systems that help people grow and contribute are facing 15 great challenges that block global progress in learning. These big invention opportunities are outlined below. Community Agreement Challenges Shared reality: Read more about 15 Invention Opportunities in Learning[…]
The Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed), in conjunction with the Future Ready Schools® (FRS) advisory team of nationally recognized school- and district-level practitioners, has developed Planning for High-Quality Remote Learning, a new resource to share ideas, best practices, and practical considerations for addressing the unique challenges of virtual learning. This guide helps school and district Read more about Planning for High-Quality Remote Learning – a Future Ready School Guide[…]
The College in High School Alliance has released the second in a new series of policy snapshots, designed to explore policy issues impacting college in high school programs such as dual enrollment and early college high school. This snapshot provides a discussion about the importance of states having quality assurance mechanisms for college in high Read more about State Approaches to Ensuring Quality for College in High School Programs[…]
What may be possible for education on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic? It is hard to imagine there will be another moment in history when the central role of education in the economic, social, and political prosperity and stability of nations is so obvious and well understood by the general population. Now is Read more about Beyond reopening schools: How education can emerge stronger than before COVID-19[…]
A new report from CASEL, Advancing Social and Emotional Learning as a Lever for Equity and Excellence, calls on researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to work hand in hand to further our collective understanding of how systemic SEL can contribute to more just, caring schools and communities where all individuals can thrive. As the pandemic and Read more about Emerging Insights on Advancing SEL as a Lever for Equity and Excellence[…]
The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) is the leading U.S. organization studying high-performing education systems and their implications for dramatically improving American education. In The Design of High-Performing Education Systems, NCEE has distilled the accumulated insights of 35 years of research from the world’s leading systems. The document organizes what they have Read more about A Framework for Policy and Practice[…]
Writing for the Fordham Institute, Chester E. Finn, Jr. presents an explanation of what is needed to fundamentally change schooling in America. Excerpts from the piece appear below: What distinguishes problems we tackle in a serious way from those we mostly just wring our hands and protest over? What distinguishes those we merely tackle from Read more about How Fundamental Change Happens in America[…]
Writing for Future Ed, David Rosenberg, a partner at Education Resource Strategies, offers a commentary on how school districts can change the way they administer online learning to improve schools. Through ERS’ work with district leaders to develop COVID Comeback School Models, the organization has identified three key decisions district leaders must make about remote Read more about Key Decisions for More Effective Distance Learning in the Fall[…]
A new guidebook from KnowledgeWorks serves as an introduction to the theories, language, mindsets and tools of systems thinking to promote educational change. Systems thinking can be a powerful element of systems transformation, no matter whether we decided to pursue change or it was thrust upon us. Systems thinking is a set of theories, tools, Read more about Looking beneath the surface: The Education Changemaker’s Guidebook to Systems Thinking[…]
The following reflections come from KnowledgeWorks: What is the purpose of K-12 education? Is it to get you into a good college? To provide you a career or military pathway? To prepare you for life? Maybe it’s all three. Maybe it depends on the student, or the needs of their family or community. There’s considerable Read more about Should K-12 Education Do More Than Prepare for College and Career?[…]