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Phil Plait says it better:

The Oklahoma House of Representatives has passed a bill that says that a student can receive a passing grade in an Earth Science class if they say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the Earth an hour ago, and then planted false memories into every single living creature on Earth to make it seem like they’ve been around longer.

That’s right. There’s a bill in Oklahoma that will allow religious beliefs to trump education –especially science education. So you think people lived with dinosaurs? No problem! And you think the sun revolves around the Earth? No problem! According to Phil, the legislation states that “a student cannot be graded down if they say that what they are being taught interferes with their religious beliefs.”

This bill still has to pass Oklahoma’s state Senate before it becomes a law. If that happens, Oklahoma will have taken a long stride back into the Dark Ages. I’ll be honest: if I were an employer, or a University recruiter, and the bill becomes law, I would look very skeptically at any application that came to my desk from a student who graduated in Oklahoma. That makes me sad, but that is the reality Oklahoma is aiming toward

Again, Phil really sums this whole thing up better. Go read about it at Bad Astronomy Blog.

Calú twittered this yesterday evening: Declaración de Ciudad del Cabo para la Educación Abierta http://tinyurl.com/2uob4w

The English version of the document can be found here. In short, Mark Shuttleworth’s foundation and the Open Society Institute are launching a campaign to “transform education” by calling for open, free educational resources to be placed online:

According to the Declaration, teachers, students and communities would benefit if publishers and governments made publicly-funded educational materials freely available online. This will give students unlimited access to high quality, constantly improving course materials, just as Wikipedia has done in the world of reference materials.

This brings up a good idea: if public education systems are paying top dollar for the creation of textbooks and other course materials, why aren’t these materials being made available to the public for free?

The rest of the declaration calls for open source education, but I’m concerned that, even if adopted, opening course materials would do little to change education. The key problem is that we’re looking to new technologies and new social models based on these technologies to drive educational change –but, in reality, we’re using new technologies and social models to teach what eventually amounts to “the same old garbage.” Such a pathway can only lead to failure.

Is there something else that we should focus on where we can use new technological and social models to develop innovative tools for education?

Two grant opportunities for innovators in education landed on my desk recently. The first is a little bit of old news: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently announced a public competition that will award $2 million in funding to emerging leaders, communicators, and innovators shaping the field of digital media and learning. The competition is part of MacArthur’s $50 million Digital Media and Learning initiative that aims to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Awards will be given in two categories:

• Innovation Awards will support learning entrepreneurs and builders of new digital environments for informal learning. Winners will receive $250,000 or $100,000.
• Knowledge Networking Awards will support communicators in connecting, mobilizing, circulating or translating new ideas around digital media and learning. Winners will receive a $30,000 base award and up to $75,000.

The second is The Mind Trust’s Education Entrepreneur Fellowship. The Fellowship will provide promising education entrepreneurs with an opportunity to develop sustainable solutions to the most daunting public education challenges. The prize is intended to revitalize the educational competitiveness of Indianapolis. Corrie Heneghan, the Trust’s COO, writes:

In short, the Fellowship is for people who envision entirely new approaches to the challenges of public education, and possess the relentless drive necessary to exploit opportunities to fulfill their visions. Fellows will receive a full-time, competitive salary, benefits, office space, and customized training and support. Fellows will be based at The Mind Trust’s offices in Indianapolis. The term of the Fellowship is two years, with the first fellows beginning their work in late spring 2008. The Mind Trust is currently accepting applications. While all fellows must include Indianapolis in the areas served by the ventures they launch, they will by no means be limited to that geography. In fact, we hope and fully expect some fellows to start regional or national enterprises.

The perks look good. The two-year fellowship includes a $5,000 annual stipend for travel and a $5,000 annual stipend for professional development in addition to a $90,000 salary.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), the lawmaker behind the pork-barrel Bridge to Nowhere and an infamous revelation that the Internet is constructed of a series of tubes is at it again. This time, he wants to ban Wikipedia at schools that receive federal funding. From Computerworld:

Early in January, Stevens introduced Senate bill 49, which among other things, would require that any school or library that gets federal Internet subsidies would have to block access to interactive Web sites, including social networking sites, and possibly blogs as well. It appears that the definition of those sites is so vague that it could include sites such as Wikipedia, according to commentators.

Remember, this is from the senator, who, on the floor, said:

Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got… an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially. [...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material It seems to me that communications and new media literacy needs to be taught in the halls of Congress as well as in our schools.

It seems the senator is concerned all the knowledge distributed through Wikipedia would dangerously tangle the tubes of the Internet. What do you think?

I’ve been participating on the Minneapolis Public Schools Technology Planning Steering Committee. The committee has adopted the Leapfrog Paradigm and leapfrog thinking into its planning. Leaping frogs are showing up in presentations, and leapfrog is becoming a metaphor for creativity in the district. The committee’s work has, however, thus far focused on discussion on the use of technologies to promote its vision to advance student achievement and improve staff productivity. I think MPS can still do better. Leapfrogging can allow the district to lead in achievement, productivity, and meaningful knowledge production.

Here are five quick thoughts on what I believe MPS can do to reinvent itself and thrive as an institution:

1. Commit to leadership in the reinvention of education in Minneapolis, the state, and in the world. The technology planning group can be the catalyst for this new orientation toward global leadership.
2. Total success is possible. Do not set any goal too low, and do not be afraid to set any goal too high. Set big, hairy, audacious goals –but, make sure to align them with a Noble Quest in a broader leapfrog strategy.
3. Don’t worry about breaking the rules. Bypass them. Better yet, leapfrog them! The disruptive change required to revolutionize MPS requires a new set of rules on a new playing field.
4. Collaborate! Advances in communications technologies and socioeconomic globalization now means that MPS competes with the world in creating meaningful education. Rather than compete, why not leverage technologies and resources available to build global-reaching partnerships and collaborations?
5. Forget about planning for the 21st Century. It’s meaningless to continue to plan for educating in the 21st Century. We’re already here. We need to start planning for the 22nd Century –and reassess our goals and priorities today based on where we need to be in the future.

That’s my two cents. I hope that these ideas will help to build a new MPS that is vibrant, edgy, hard-charging, and value-creating for Minneapolis, the state and the world.

Last Friday, 26 leaders from Minnesota’s PreK-17 spectrum gathered for the second meeting of the Horizon Forum. Dr. Tom Tapper, superintendent of Owatonna Public Schools, presented a compelling argument that public education is nearing obsolescence. He states:

Today, the system of public education has a choice: it either leads change, or is led by it. The essence of our society is dynamic and is becoming innovative in nature. Changes in public education will follow, to refuse change is not an option, however, how we change is. The power to decide lies within it.

Dr. Arthur Harkins (University of Minnesota) followed with a presentation on undergraduate knowledge production and its innovative potentials in the College of Education and Human Development. The College, also, needs to decide whether it will lead or become obsolete, and that it has several alternatives:

• Help upgrade the USA culture, starting with families and schools
• Help massively (and selectively) encourage emigration of outstanding families and individuals to the USA
• Advocate funding of all ‘performing’ students fro PreK through 17 to create required human and social capital. (no student debt)
• Utilize advanced technology

The next Horizon Forum meeting will be on at 12:00pm on December 12 in Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota.

The current topic of the third forum is Human Capital Development and PreK-17 Education. More details on this upcoming event will be posted soon.

(Thanks to Tom Elko for providing notes from the meeting.)