Of course class matters. Schools matter too.
A recent piece on the New York Times op-ed page, which somehow didn’t get much immediate attention, ranks in the view of this jaded sometimes-ed-writer as one of the most troubling articles on education reform of 2011. The December 11 op-ed, by Duke public policy professor Helen Ladd and former New York Times education editor […]
Drone Submarines, Flying Cars, and the Classroom
What does education have in common with a pilotless submarine and remote-controlled insects? In short, the letters ARPA. Stay with us for a moment — because we’re going to need your help. In 1953, Congress created DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — to catch up with a Soviet Union that could turn […]
Mapping the K-12 Ed Tech Market
When Amerigo Vespucci made a map that showed how to find North America, people liked it so much they named the place after him. Having now finished up a map of the known world in education technology, with generous support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, we are not expecting to find it in […]
Live, from New York: It’s Education Entrepreneurs!
This week, as part of the NBC News Education Nation program, NewSchools is partnering with NBC to put a spotlight on education innovation. Three teams of early-stage entrepreneurs who want to use their imagination and technological savvy to help educators are competing for a $100,000 prize from sponsor Citi, as well as organizational support from NewSchools. […]
Asking the Wrong Question on Ed Tech
How good are restaurants? The question is obviously silly, because the category is too broad to produce a useful answer. Yet the New York Times, in its big Sunday splash on education technology, makes fundamentally the same mistake – but then, fortunately, did much better in its story today about the Apollo reform effort in […]
SOD – “Save Our Debate”
In Washington DC, the end of July is supposed to be a time of miserable weather during which the politicos get nothing done because they’re on vacation. Instead, it’s a time of miserable weather during which politicos are getting nothing done because they’re staring each other down over the ruins of our country’s credit rating. […]
NewSchools Venture Fund Managing Partner Jim Peyser Named to National Charter Schools Hall of Fame
“Jim has helped to shape the most important part of the charter school world—the high-performing charter management organizations, which are changing lives for low-income kids,” said NewSchools CEO Ted Mitchell.
2011 Investing in Innovation (i3) competition announced
Here’s a bit of information on the newly announced 2011 round of the federal Investing in Innovation Fund, or i3. We’re thrilled that nine members of the NewSchools portfolio were winners last year, and want to make sure you have the information that will enable you to decide whether the fund is of interest to […]
Summit 2011: Innovation, honesty, and muffins
Yes, there were some marquee names. Mark Zuckerberg. John Doerr. Joel Klein. Sal Khan. Kaya Henderson. Reed Hastings. As Tom Vander Ark noted, “We don’t have many rock stars in education, but most of them were on the stage at the Summit.” But it was more than just star power that people were talking about […]
Bing Gordon on videogame design thinking
Only in one universe do the world’s farms produce more strawberries than corn, rice, sugar beets or soybeans. That universe is Farmville, the Facebook app whose other major product seems to be astonishing statistics. Statistics like that there are 30 times more people farming imaginary fields on Facebook than working on real farms in the […]