Nothing is more political than education. The Texas State Board of Education reminded us of the phenomenon this month, rewriting textbook guidelines to match their conservative, theological worldviews. Not since the Kansas Board of Education voted to restrict the teaching of evolution has an entire state backlashed so strongly against science and reason. In an [...]

Ken Robinson goes on the offensive against standardized testing in a post-industrial society … and hits the issue on the head:

An invitation to the next Horizon Forum meeting at the University of Minnesota: Education and the Technological Singularity January 27, 2010 11:30am – 1:30pm 250 Wulling Hall (U of M East Bank) At the next Horizon Forum, you are invited to join the discussion, moderated by Arthur Harkins and John Moravec, with special guests, as [...]

In this video from The UpTake forwarded to Education Futures from Bring Me the News, President Obama speaks on the relationship between education and national competitiveness (you can skip the introductions and jump to his talk which begins around 6:20 into the video): President Obama: “So make no mistake: Our future is on the line. [...]

This year, Minnesota 2020 has released some exciting critiques of the state of education in Minnesota and nationally. And, by “exciting,” I mean sometimes scathing critiques … with a glimmer of hope. At the top of their hit list (and rightfully so) is No Child Left Behind. This morning, they blogged: Last fall, the prestigious [...]

About an hour ago, Maya Frost tweeted something utterly disturbing: Not So Global: Share of US public elementary schools teaching foreign language classes drops by 40% in last decade http://tinyurl.com/ak4at9 From the linked article (via Public School Insights): The share of U.S. public elementary schools teaching foreign language has fallen by almost 40% over the [...]

An interesting conversation on creativity is emerging on the blogosphere. Many people saw Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk on reintroducing creativity into schools, and undermine assembly line approaches to creating automatons out of students. On Sunday, North Carolina 6th grade teacher Bill Ferriter countered, “Creativity is dead, Ken,” and outlined barriers in his classroom that [...]

Cristóbal Cobo forwarded an article from Brand Republic from earlier this year. It contains a few provocative lines from Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics: Tapscott said: “Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge — the internet is. Kids should learn about history but they don’t need to know all the dates. “It is enough that [...]

Today, the New York Times reports that, “the rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans,” rapidly outpacing increases in family income … and even outpacing increases in health care expenses. Citing a report by the National Center for Public Policy and [...]

I’m back from China (jet lagged and blurry-eyed)! One of the most interesting aspects of my visit to Anqing Teachers College for an international conference on Leapfrog Education is that the Leapfrog Institutes and Education Futures websites were non-accessible from within China, but were available to the rest of the world. The Golden Shield Project, [...]