- December 23, 2010 • 8:00 am PST
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California has brought you pop culture mainstays like Lauren Conrad, gangster rap, and the Black Eyed Peas. When it comes to education, what happens in California is just as influential, and it's probably coming to a school near you. Not only does California crush the competition with the sheer immensity of its education system—almost 10,000 schools, 293,000 teachers, and over 6 million K-12 students—some of the most innovative and downright controversial education reform happenings go down first in the Golden State. Here are four of the biggest from 2010 that we predict will impact your local education system in 2011.


Almost every major urban school districts saw leadership shakeups this year. Here are some of the biggest.

From foraging to First Lady's anti-obesity campaign, the year in good eating, drinking, and thinking.

GOOD Business tracks the seven big social innovation trends in 2011.

Take a look at Fimoculus's massive aggregation of 2010 Year in Review Lists.

During the past year, designers worked harder than ever to solve problems with a societal impact. Here's a look at their challenges and triumphs.

What can an outpouring of 2011 food trend predictions tell us about today, if not tomorrow?

It's the world's most popular social network, and companies have been eager to join the crowd. See the 10 most popular brands on Facebook.

Will 2010 be remembered as the year that Earth struck back? There's no arguing that it was a wild, destructive, and fatal year of extreme weather.

Let’s look back at a year of wild and wacky architectural achievements—from the super-size to the super-tall to the super-expensive.

Find out which degree fields have gained in popularity and which have declined over the course of ten years.

An author from 1900 has a compelling vision for education that includes free universities and in-school medical care for all students.

From gaming to teacher leadership, 2011 brought plenty of classroom innovation that promises to make us smarter.
As a devoted reader torn between my love for print and my love for trees, I'm eager to check out this horticultural alternative to the digital...

A new mural recently completed in Boyle Heights is part of a global campaign to empower young people in the preservation of water.
From Boing Boing comes this video, by Al Jazeera, which offers one look at a legal battle between a resident of the polluted Niger Delta and...
Samy is in Bangkok—over 100 miles away from the one place he’s ever legally allowed to be. After Google Latitudes abruptly alerted me to the...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced plans to fundamentally change the way the State Department works with USAID.

This interactive map lets you see how college education has developed in the United States, and where you live.

Citizens in countries from Ireland to Canada to Austria are seeing less "utility" in organized religion.