Mindworkers

Charlet T. Kerchner / MindWorkers

D.C. School Cheating Issue Calls Test-Driven Incentives into Question

This post can also be found at EdSource The smoke surrounding allegations of test score cheating in the Washington, D.C public schools burst into flame last week.  In a 4,300-word blog post, titled Michelle Rhee’s Reign of Error, the veteran educational journalist John Merrow linked the former schools chancellor with documents that suggest that she […]

Big Money and the School Board: An Annotation of a “L.A. Times” Op-Ed

[This story has also been posted at Ed Source.] The Los Angeles Times Monday printed an op-ed piece I wrote about last week’s school board election, where a coalition of deep pockets givers spurred by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spent over $63 per vote.  It was not only big money but also money badly spent.  (Read […]

“I would prefer to trust our teachers…”

California’s Back!  Gov. Jerry Brown did himself proud in Thursday’s state-of-the-state speech, and he did California proud, too.  In the details of the speech, there are prospects for boldness, greatness, and innovation, not the tire patching and gridlock we’ve experienced as government. Others will comment in great length on the wisdom of the San Joaquin […]

Three Modest Suggestions About Technology Policy

Last Friday, I presented some of my thoughts about educational technology at the Policy Analysis For California Education seminar at Sacramento.  I began by asking the same question that I’ve asked myself and others over the last couple years: “Why should California, the headwater of the digital revolution, be stuck in the eddies of early […]

Musings About Educational Dashboards: They’re About More Than Green Lights

I’ve been doing some musing about educational dashboards lately, the displays that school districts and others are developing to provide quick indicators of success or failure. The iconography, of course, is derived from the dashboards in our automobiles, and we understand the self-correcting nature of those indicators.  People who don’t heed the “tank empty” light […]

High Tech High and Networks of Ideas

Today I published a long-in-the-works case study of High Tech High, the collection of schools in San Diego County that follow the same design and operating principles. Each of the 11 HTH schools is small, a maximum of 125 students per grade, and personalized.  Each of the schools follows a project-based curriculum that requires students […]

The Road to Learning 2.0: Publishing as an Incentive To Practice Writing

Ben Heckman, an 8th grader from Framington, MN, is a twice-published novelist whose story was told in a New York Times piece about the growing number of young writers who break into print, usually with a little bankrolling from their parents.  Hundreds of teenage and younger authors are publishing every year. The Times story by […]

A Quick Look at ‘Students as the Real Workers in the Education System’ in Riverside

Part of Learning 2.0 is being Beta tested in the Riverside Unified School District, the 43,000-student school system 60 miles east of Los Angeles. At the invitation of Superintendent Rick Miller, I undertook a blitzkrieg tour of Riverside schools last week and came away impressed with how they have pushed the envelope of teaching and […]

Learning 2.0 The Movie, Again with Fixes

The first version of Learning 2.0, The Movie was a little fuzzy so I engineered it again and resent it to YouTube.  This one should be of higher quality.  Thanks for watching.

Critiques of Learning 2.0 and Some Responses. Thanks To All

I’ve received some response to the Politics of Learning 2.0, much of it helpfully critical. Here, in a nutshell, are some amendments that these critiques have spurred.  Thanks to all for your thoughts.  What follows are comments followed by my reactions. I’m not sure Learning 2.0 is a good basis for all of education.  Some […]

« go back — keep looking »

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.'

Search

Subscribe to my Blog

Archives

Blogs I Read