Dennis Littky & Eliot Washor: Met Makers

Credit: Brian Cairns

"We are not living in daring times," warns Elliot Washor, codirector with Dennis Littky of the Big Picture Company, a group devoted to creating personalized, community-based schools that defy the era of the high-stakes test.

Both Washor and Littky continue to push the Big Picture agenda through their rapidly growing network of schools around the nation -- already forty strong -- by developing and refining methods and initiatives such as hands-on learning, real-world experiences for students, and a high-school-to-college transition program.

Littky is also developing a college based on the Big Picture philosophy, in order to make higher education more accessible to low-income and what he calls "differently abled" students. The institution, set to open in fall 2009, will provide internships, new technologies, and low tuition.

Both visionaries are keeping pace with their goal: to effect sweeping change in the educational and social landscape. Still, there's more to come. "Although there are people doing work that is on the edge of schooling and learning," Washor says, "it is something that should be more common."

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