A Word from Professor Drucker…and Friends about Education Standards

The folks at the Drucker Institute have put up an interesting interchange about common educational standards. There are clips from Peter Drucker himself, comments from Rick Wartzman, executive director of the Institute, and some thoughts from Dave Levin, co-founder of KIPP. I also make an appearance, courtesy of Phalana Tiller, who is putting together the […]

A New Look at Europe

On Thursday, I wandered across campus to hear Steven Hill talk about his new book, Europe’s Promise. Hill is the director of the political reform program at the New American Foundation, and a will-published policy writer who has been studying what we inaccurately refer to at the Old World for a decade. As is so […]

Can Teachers Run Their Own Schools?

As a part of the “learning differently” study, I have visited several schools run as teacher cooperatives: no principal, flat organization. Cooperatives, of course, are a great American tradition. We think of the limited liability corporation as one of the great social inventions of the last two hundred years, but cooperatives have been a part […]

Peer Review Redux

The idea of peer review for teachers, that I wrote about in United Mindworkers, and A Union of Professionals in the 1990s has now come alive again. See this recent Huffington Post piece. First there is a new book by Jennifer Goldstein, published by Teachers College Press. It describes the work of the PAR panels […]

A Not Quite Palace Revolt

Bruce Fuller from UC Berkeley has written about the politics of LAUSD in Education Next. Under the title “Palace Revolt in Los Angeles?” he recounts the story of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s attempts to control the school system and particularly how his connection to grassroots Latino activism and United Teachers Los Angeles. The connection between grassroots community organizing […]

A Note about GLOW, the Scottish Education Intranet

I wrote a short piece in the Huffington Post today about Glow, the Scottish investment in an intranet system. It’s worth a longer look, and I am overdue in finishing up a descriptive analysis of how it works and how it was created. There are three important things to realize about Glow: First, it is […]

Exhibition Night at High Tech High

For an interesting evening, a feel-good experience, and a lesson in what schools can be, spend an evening looking at exhibits of student work at High Tech High in San Diego. I saw scores of well crafted examples of what high school students can do, some of which were highly sophisticated. The HTH students were […]

The L.A. Compact: Increasing Civic Capacity

In a Huffington Post piece today, I lauded the new L.A. Compact as a sensible and hopeful way to engage the city in support of its schools. The Compact is modeled after the Boston Compact, that drew together the business community, the schools, and the city government in that city for more than two decades. […]

New Pictures in The Gallery

In addition to occasional thoughts about education, I dabble in photography. A few from 2009 are posted in the Gallery (see link above). Enjoy. FYI/ You will not find pictures of the kids, grandchildren, Christmas tree, or other family related photographs here. It’s a photo gallery; not a public family album. Next up in gallery […]

Mel Smith

Mel Smith died this week at 97. He was my surrogate father, the go-to elder in my life, the model of a public servant, and a Christian gentlemen. His warm smile, ready handshake, and sunny disposition triumphed in a life that could have been surrendered to grousing about bureaucracy and personal tragedy. Mel passed out […]

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'On California' at EdWeek.org

I have concluded my opinion blog on the Golden State's politics and education policies at EdWeek.org. An archive of the 281 posts can be reached by clicking HERE

Learning 2.0

Learning 2.0 is the next full scale version of public education, one that builds on the capacity of the Internet age.

The five elements of Learning 2.0 are explained by clicking HERE:

Mixing acquisition of knowledge and practice, head and hands.
An individual education plan for everyone.
Understanding that students are the real workers in the education system.
Unbundle teaching, testing, and mentoring.
Add collaboration and solving tough, ambiguous problems to the list of basic skills.

Recent Projects

Teacher Work and Teacher Unions
‘Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education’
Teacher-Run Schools

Currently Reading

About

Charles Taylor Kerchner is an Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University. My daily musings appear in the blog. The archives of my EdWeek blog are available via link under the 'On California' head. Some of my photography can be seen by clicking on 'Gallery.' And numerous links to academic work and other research and commentary can be found by clicking on 'Projects.'

Mindworkers

Charlet T. Kerchner / MindWorkers