Blogs on Education Reform

Editor's Note: Will Richardson is the author of weblogg-ed, a blog that covers the intersection of learning, technology and ed reform. A former classroom teacher in Flemington, New Jersey, Richardson is also the author of the book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. He is also a member of the National Advisory Council here at the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

Tim Stahmer's post "There's No Normal to Return To" has me thinking this morning. He writes:

At the same time we in education are also doubling down on the "back to basics" and on teaching kids how to follow someone else's instructions. Our leaders, both political and business, want us to think that if we just combine greater effort with more standardization that we can recreate the glorious old days where every kid was above average and US test scores topped every other country.

In November of last year, the Department of Education released its National Education Technology Plan (NETP) after 18 months of input from educators, government officials, and industry people.

Earlier this year here on Edutopia, blogger Audrey Watters reviewed the plan and solicited questions from the Edutopia community about the plan. We sent the highest-ranking questions to DOE's Karen Cator who answered each of them -- on video -- here.

Recently, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for a renewed emphasis on career and technical education (CTE) in America's schools. Not the old "vocational" approach, where some students are tracked to enter a trade upon graduation from high school, while others are prepared to enter degree programs in college.

Editor's Note: Today's guest blogger is Audrey Watters, is a technology journalist specializing in education technology news. She has read all 100+ pages of the National Education Technology Plan released by the U. S. Department of Education last November, and she has summarized it below.