Forget the Fiscal Cliff – What About the School Cliff?!

Gallup surveyed nearly 500,000 students in grades five through 12 from more than 1,700 public schools in 37 states in 2012, and guess what – student engagement drops dramatically over time. In other words, the longer you are in school, the less you care about – or are likely to get anything out of – being in school.

The Gallup blog reports,

We found that nearly eight in 10 elementary students who participated in the poll are engaged with school. By middle school that falls to about six in 10 students. And by high school, only four in 10 students qualify as engaged. Our educational system sends students and our country’s future over the school cliff every year.

We’ve argued – and continue to argue – that “reform” is not enough to fix this situation – transformation is needed. I recommend reading the Gallup blog post for more details about the drop in student engagement represented by the “school cliff.” Also, see Gallup’s site for the Student Poll.

Jeff

Stop Stealing Dreams – Seth Godin’s Take on Education

I’m thrilled to see someone like Seth Godin take up the topic of transforming education and obviously put quite a lot of thought and effort into writing about. This, for me, is a sign that public attention and debate is spreading – and certainly, with Seth in the fray, will spread even more further and more quickly. As David and I suggest in Shift Ed, real transformation is unlikely to happen until the debate becomes much, much broader and begins to generate more and louder voices from other than the usual suspects.

I encourage you to download the free Stop Stealing Dreams – What Is School For? I have not had a chance to fully read and digest it yet, but just glancing through, Seth hits on many of the themes that we cover in Shift Ed. It will, without a doubt, be an interesting read. Please share any thoughts it provokes for you in the comments are below.

Jeff

The Freelance Revolution – Shape Shifters needed

Sarah Horowitz’s recent article The Freelance Surge is the Industrial Revolution of our Time provides a great complement to the Seth Godin article I highlighted in my previous post. As Horowitz writes: Everywhere we look, we can see the U.S. workforce undergoing a massive change. No longer do we work at the same company for [Read Full Post]

As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education…

Seth Godin has a post today that echoes the core theme of Shift Ed – namely, that our approach to schooling is out of synch with the world in which we now live.  “As we get ready for the 93rd year of universal public education,” Seth says, …here’s the question every parent and taxpayer needs [Read Full Post]

Not Your Forefather’s Economy – Sir Ken Robinson on EdTech Live

Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on creativity in education has been viewed millions of time, and he has recently come out with a significantly revised version of his bestseller Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. In a recent episode of the EdTech Live podcast, Steve Hargadon interviews Sir Ken about the book as [Read Full Post]