The Education Evolving Blog

Two years ago, E|E’s managing partner Curt Johnson co-authored a book both explaining and predicting the rapid pace of change in American Public Education. Co-authored by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn, a second edition of “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns,” is now available on line and in major bookstores across the country.

In a guest post for Education Innovating, Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville describes the motivation behind that state’s recently-enacted Innovation Schools law, enabling districts to create schools with autonomy reflective of chartering. This significant systemic reform is similar to Boston's Pilot Schools, as well as Minnesota’s Site-Governed Schools law passed in 2009. Already in 2010 two new schools were created under the law.

Why is such energy spent arguing over school reforms, when the more relevant question it seems is what the school is?

Fraser Speirs is a software developer and teaches computing at Cedars School of Excellence, an independent school in the UK. He maintains a blog and recently wrote about bringing iPads into their school. Here he describes their experience supplying all 106 students with an an iPad, giving them space to use it as they see fit. "It is finding many uses."