Arne Duncan, US Ed Secretary explains that the site will serve as a place to connect ideas from educators and supporters across the nation to develop a marketplace of ideas about how we can ensure that every child, “graduates ready to succeed in college and the workplace.” …As an innovative educator, I would add “society” in the mix and I’m not convinced that college is necessary for all citizens either, but this is a step in the right direction for sure.
Duncan shares that this site was developed out to the belief that, “the innovative ideas that will transform our education system will not come from Washington, D.C. They will come from communities across the country. The Department of Education will play a role as convener of these diverse ideas and facilitator of partnerships. The Innovation Web Portal is the first of a number of initiatives that the Department will launch over the coming months as we work to build these partnerships that will drive innovation in education.”
You can register for the site and join the conversation at https://innovation.ed.gov.
I'm wondering whether this is truly a good thing. There's already a ton of research and successful, alternative school systems being mostly ignored by current reform efforts. This portal is looking for new ideas, when we already have a lot of great ones - they're just too different from the current system for most people to embrace.
ReplyDeleteI think a huge obstacle to real reform is that everyone thinks they're qualified to have an opinion about education (especially politicians). I'm afraid this portal might just strengthen the idea that we don't need to be looking at the research or at what already works - instead just pulling ideas out thin air, only judging them by how well they resonate with the public.
As Keynes once said about economics (and I think it's true about education as well), "The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones."
This sounds really interesting. Connecting ideas from across the nations into a marketplace of ideas? That is a lot of ideas. But hey, if it will help educators to ensure that every child gets an education, then I am all for it.
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