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What Works in Public Education

The Long View: Taking a Look Ahead

by Grace Rubenstein

This is a multipart article. Click here to go to the beginning.

A handful of other trends promise equally strong impact -- but over a longer time frame. Here's what educators can expect to see emerge over the next five years and beyond.

1 Boy-Crisis Backlash

Though boy-centric schooling will crop up here and there, the fad will fade and give way to the notion that the real deficits in education are based on race and economics, not gender.

2 Not Your Old Nintendo

Simulation-style computer games designed especially for education will become valuable teaching tools and will build on learning strengths many kids acquire outside of school.

3 Economic Cart, Educational Horse

From the current push for simply drilling students to compete as scientists and engineers, attention will shift to linking more comprehensive education policies to a national strategy for economic development and new technology.

4 More Is Better

Rather than continue to jettison art, music, and other disciplines not assessed on standardized tests, creative educators will find innovative ways to blend the traditional lines between disciplines, such as incorporating math into music and reading into history -- the antithesis of, and an antidote to, the drill-and-kill response to testing.

5 Alternative Avenues

As virtual learning grows and the economy increasingly values skills not taught in conventional classrooms, such as creativity and diplomacy, a traditional high school diploma will no longer be a prerequisite to college or a successful career.

What's Next > New (School) Year's Resolutions

This article originally published on 10/19/2006

This article was also published in the September 2006 issue of Edutopia magazine.