Real Education Reform

We all believe that there are some things that need to be done to improve our schools. I believe that many of our schools are great, but a lot of them are in trouble and there are also a lot of them that need to join the 21st century. With all the talk of charter schools and merit pay and putting parents in jail if they don't come to conferences I think it is time to take a look at schools that are being innovative and successful. In an article written by Kathy Baron titled "Academies: School Within a School"she introduces us to a school that is trying some real reform. They have created high school classes that actually go into DEPTH into a subject. Students sign up for a class that lasts three to four years and they work as a cohort collaboratively to create, communicate, learn and succeed together. Some examples are a green (environmental) class and a physics class. What I like about it is that students are engaged and they are learning and they are using all of the skills that we coin as 21st century learning. This is the direction that I believe we should all be heading in for school reform. Not longer days....just better ones! Please check out this article because it was hard for me to do it justice in a short blog.