Among the topics Bill Gates discussed in his foundation's annual letter was one that aligns well with the interests of the former Microsoft CEO: online learning. In addition to funding efforts to develop better vaccines, eradicate HIV/AIDS, and improve agriculture in the developing world, Gates is also keen on opening up the world of education to anyone who wants to learn.

"Most of us have had a teacher whose lectures made a subject seem fascinating even though we didn't expect that it would be," he wrote in the letter. "Now that finding and watching videos is a standard part of the internet experience, we can put great teachers' lectures online."

Thanks to a movement that began a decade ago, it's already happening-called OpenCourseWare, it intends to democratize learning by putting syllabi, lecture notes, exams, homework assignments, and, yes, even lectures from university professors, online so that anyone can access them for free. Among the prominent institutions lending their hefty credibility to this practice is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is at the vanguard of the movement and, about four years ago, became the first school to post its entire curriculum online.

"It's kind of removing the veil from what goes on at most colleges," says Mary Lou Forward, executive director of the OpenCourseWare Consortium. The consortium now includes roughly 100 different OCW sites among its 250 members and 13,000 courses are available online. (That figure reflects more than double the number of courses available only two years ago.) MIT's offerings are considered among the most comprehensive, whereas Stanford University has succeeded in collecting an extensive archive of past lectures.

The movement works on the "Field of Dreams" principle-"if you build it, they will come." But it's difficult to determine what people are actually coming for, since the sites are free and mostly don't require registration. That's why MIT decided to survey the visitors to its OCW site, which receives about 1 million page views per month. MIT found that half of the users are self-learners looking to gain knowledge on a particular subject area, about a third are students who want to complement their existing coursework, and the rest are educators who primarily want to deepen their understanding of a given field.

"A lot of institutions are putting up what they see as their strengths," says Forward, allowing them to make connections with far-flung colleagues. Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, for example, posted many of its courses related to water management, which a group of engineers in Indonesia happened upon. The two teams are now tailoring a water management program focused on the needs of Southeast Asia using Delft's know-how. "Traditionally, when universities wanted to make these connections, they had to go through different networks or send people to conferences," Forward explains. "Now you've streamlined that beginning step."

But in disciplines that tend to be less collaborative by nature, the adoption of OCW has occurred at a slower pace. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the movement has its roots at a strong technical and engineering school, the hard sciences dominate the scene. The liberal arts, meanwhile, are still lagging far behind. Joey King, executive director of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, says that part of the issue is that liberal arts professors, who pride themselves on their particular take on a subject and the classroom environment they create, want ownership over their courses.

Arts-related OCW also raises interesting intellectual property issues. "Those are disciplines that traditionally rely on primary-source material-beyond the most introductory courses, most humanities courses don't use textbooks," says King. "It's a different style." Putting lecture materials from those classes, which could include extensive book excerpts, film snippets, or whole poems, could create some rights issues for schools, he adds.

OCW is largely covered by the doctrine of fair use, which allows for the repurposing of copyrighted material, as long as the reuse doesn't infringe on the original work-by, say, replacing the original in the marketplace, as bootlegged movies do. If a professor uses a film clip for educational purposes, and doesn't use more of the film then is needed to make a point, Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believes they'll be protected by fair use laws.

McSherry adds that if institutions are proactive and are careful to use best practices, intellectual property will not be an issue. "The arguments for OpenCourseWare are so strong and powerful, it would surprise me if traditional publishers-even if they did have a problem with it-would really want to go after OpenCourseWare directly," she explains.

As more material finds its way online, OpenCourseWare could eventually become well-trafficked resources-not unlike Wikipedia. Sites like Academic Earth, which is funded by the Gates Foundation, are already collecting some of the best lectures available online from top schools. Third-party businesses could pop up to help online learners find courses that are appropriate for them and, perhaps, one day, online learners could even earn credit for the classes they take using the material.

What follows is the next frontier in the OpenCourseWare movement-and the lynchpin to its success-accreditation. "Our challenge is what's the added value for the learner? What pathways to credit might there be?" says Forward, who directs OCW Consortium. "Those conversations are happening. There's not agreement-let me be clear on that-but those conversations are happening."

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.


 

College classrooms might be a little quieter these days, thanks to the economy. Higher education is being strangled by budget cuts and shrunken endowments. But there is one area that has been, perhaps not surprisningly, a growth industry for higher ed: the internet.

In the past five years, enrollment in online courses has boomed, delivering on the promise that the internet might truly change the way students think about higher education. In 2007, more than 20 percent of all college and university students in the United States were taking at least one course online, and while traditional college enrollment is growing at a rate of 1.2 percent, online learning shows consistent double-digit growth. And it's not only changing the face of higher education, it's also impacting the kinds of students that enroll.

Suddenly, a different kind of student is going to college: young adults who need to join the job market directly following high school; students who can't afford long commutes or relocation costs of going to a school far from home; new moms. As it stands, more than half of college students work while earning their degrees, but at community colleges, according to CALPIRG, a California-based public interest research group, the average working student logs a whopping 23 hours a week. Without the restriction of an on-campus class schedule, schools can more readily accommodate employment schedules and other commitments.

Kerrin McMahan, the dean of academics at East Los Angeles College, who runs their online program and teaches web-based classes, says that growth in enrollment for these types of courses has been huge. From 2006 to 2007, it jumped 46 percent and then another 33 percent the following year. While budget cuts have since slowed growth, McMahan is confident that it's not an indication of demand. "About ten percent of our students are now taking classes online," she says, adding, "And I've had many tell me that it's the only way that they can be in school."

Another trend if afoot with online learners: Some schools are starting to angle for more non-resident students as well. While Baghdad-based girls aren't earning online law degrees from Harvard just yet, it may happen sooner than we think. In March, the University of California Commission on the Future presented a round of proposals to counter some of the fiscal challenges they're facing-California's state college system has been plagued with budget woes for years-and many ideas focused on how to grow the non-resident student population through Internet courses..

There is concern, of course, as to whether an online education can provide the same quality of instruction as compared to in-class learning. But at ELAC, it doesn't seem to be a problem: When teachers reviewed in-class test scores versus those from web-based classes, students rated more or less on par. The question inevitably arises: Are these virtual learners cheating? McMahan says it's something teachers have to consider when building their curricula, adding "but if they were cheating, their scores would be higher, not the same."  

There's a human element to the college experience that might be lost, as well. The traditional college experience-where teenagers leave home to see the world and figure out who they are, and where the impact of a professor standing in front of you can be transformational-cannot be replicated online. That can be hard on teachers, too: Direct, face-to-face contact with students can be a difficult thing for some educators to give up, says McMahan.

But for educators, and for students, there are all kinds of new benefits associated with going virtual: Teachers starting families can opt to spend more time at home, or plan class work from an internet cafe in Italy. And while overseas, they can even sneak a video of the David on their iPhone and post it for their first-year art history students to see. There is a new  room to be creative, likely opening the door for fresh and innovative approaches to learning.

Besides, there doesn't appear to be much choice. This ship is already sailing, no matter what rough shores lay ahead. "I've seen predictions that this will become the majority of higher education in the next decade," say McMahan. For the most part, she thinks that's a good thing. As for the students who couldn't even be at college without the online option? The answer isn't surprising: "They're incredibly grateful for the opportunity."

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.


 

Tim Smasal didn’t really think that college fit into his already jam-packed schedule.  Smasal, who is a high school dropout, works as a civilian aircraft technician for the United States Air Force. Needless to say, the hours are brutal. “It’s nonstop. Overtime and weekends are a given. We take some holidays off, but it depends on flying schedules.”

But despite the unpredictability of his job, Smasal wanted a college diploma and, intrigued by the convenience of taking courses online, decided to sign up. In 2008, Smasal enrolled at American InterContinental University Online, a military-focused school that offers many of its courses online. He double-majored in human resources and business management and while he says he struggled at times with the workload—“There were a couple of papers where I had to burn the midnight oil,” he says—the fact that his courses were online made it possible for him to pursue higher education.

“Students can be anywhere,” says Norma Smith, a dean who oversees military students at AIU. “They just need an internet connection.”

Last August, the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill—which pays the entire cost of tuition for veterans who have either served for three years since September 11, 2001 or were disabled during duty—took effect. And since then, military veterans have been taking advantage of the unique opportunity in record numbers—the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs administered $1.5 billion in payments to 183,000 veterans during the fall semester alone.

In all, the bill is estimated to cost approximately $78 billion over the next decade. And unlike its predecessor, the newly revamped G.I. Bill also provides a $1,000 per-year stipend for housing and books. It also gives veterans that have served as reserves or spent more than six years on active duty the chance to transfer benefits to their spouse or children if they decide to reenlist for four more years.

“The new G.I. Bill has spurred enrollments,” confirms J.J. Jones, the vice president of U.S. Department of Defense relations at the University of Maryland University College. And institutions such as UMUC, AIU Online, and University of Phoenix (full disclosure: University of Phoenix is GOOD's education sponsor), have reaped the benefits—and bushels of federal dollars—because of their advancements in online learning and ability to cater to the unique needs of the military student. “Our faculty understands the military lifestyle,” Jones says. “If a student has to be out of class for a couple of weeks, our faculty knows how to get them through the class.”

Neal Henderson, a retired Navy master chief, who now works for the U.S. Department of the Navy, had wanted to return to school for years. In 1979, he dropped out of Oklahoma University after his sophomore year to join the Marines. He then switched over to the Navy and worked as a career recruiter, but was always mindful of life after the military.

“I knew that a degree would affect my salary structure once I left,” says Henderson, who was drawn to the flexibility of online courses. “People take online classes because they are available no matter where you’re at,” he says. “I’ve taken online classes because that fits with my schedule. That has been a deciding factor.”

Henderson maintains that online education offers unique opportunities not available in a traditional classroom setting. “Right now, I have an instructor who is in Florida, so you get access to good professors who not available locally,” he says. “We also have people in my classes who are in Europe or China or on the west coast, so you’re getting different points of view.”

To counter the isolation of online learning, meanwhile, some schools have gotten creative. “We have a networking group on our virtual campus,” Smith says. “For each branch of the military, we have a discussion board where they can post comments, talk about what they are experiencing and get support from their peers.”

Of course, there are drawbacks. Class participation favors students with strong written communications skills, because asking questions in class involves typing them out. Also, problem-solving courses like math and science can be troublesome. “There were certain classes I had to take face-to-face, like statistics,” Henderson explains. “I couldn’t type the formulas and I needed the immediate interaction with the professor.”

But military students do have one distinct advantage over their peers when it comes to learning in an online classroom: discipline.

“There were times I got distracted, but drawing from my military experience, I knew I had to stay the course,” says Smasal, who completed his coursework at AIU Online in February and is looking forward to this spring’s graduation ceremony.

“It feels great,” he says. “Mainly because I didn’t allow myself the opportunity to walk after graduating from high school.”

For Smasal, it will be a unique opportunity to interact with many of his classmates—not online but finally in person.

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.Edit image


 

On most Saturday mornings, in the auditorium of a public school in Harlem, New York, a nation-building exercise is taking shape. Nearly 100 black and hispanic expectant mothers, new parents, and even a few grandparents gather to participate in something called Baby College.

Since 2000, Baby College—which operates nearly year round in five nine-week sessions—has helped thousands of Harlem parents develop strategies to better discipline, protect, and connect with their young children. It is an early-childhood training program operated by the pioneering social service nonprofit organization, Harlem Children’s Zone.

Today, staff members have convinced the families in attendance to stand up out of their chairs and belt out upbeat, a cappella English and Spanish renditions of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” Some mothers even up hop on stage, mimic the climbing spider with hand gestures, and lead the unlikely community in an all out sing-along.

“We do things in a kooky fun way, because we want to model for parents how important is to play with their children,” explains Baby College director Marilyn Joseph. “We want to use these early years to teach parents that they’re the first teachers.”

The nursery rhyme has become a signature icebreaker activity at Baby College. It helps set the mood for the rest of a day where parents get to discuss the most effective child rearing practices—everything from disciplining methods to facts about immunization and safety, to the role that reading, singing, and playing with a young child has on their early cognitive and social development.

For many unmarried mothers, like 25-year-old Raenel Ross, there’s something comforting about the Baby College community. “One thing I learned is that parenting doesn’t come in a book,” says Ross, holding her 2-year-old son, Blake. “You can never prepare or just read Parenting for Dummies. Nothing compares to coming here and speaking to other parents.”

The program represents the first step Harlem Children’s Zone’s attempt at a comprehensive strategy to create a “cradle to college” system, in which low-income, inner-city children are groomed for academic success from the womb until they are 3.

At Baby College, parents are urged to provide encouragement and stimulation that will start that process in motion. It’s a novel approach that, like many of the programs at Harlem Children’s Zone, seems ripe for replication. In fact, the organization regularly conducts workshops, arranges site visits, and fields phone calls from other groups seeking guidance on how to best replicate the success of Baby College in their neighborhoods around the country.

However, Rasuli Lewis, who manages such consultation requests as head of Practitioners Institute, which shares the work of HCZ with other communities, warns that nonprofits interested in creating their own version or Baby College need to first evaluate the needs of their local population and then modify a program accordingly.

For instance, the needs and challenges faced by Harlem children and parents may not be the same in every city. “If they decided that early childhood is where they want to focus in the beginning of their initiative, they will have to look to see what they have,” Lewis says. “Who is doing this work in their neighborhood, community, town and what is their capacity, their need. That will help in terms of decisions if Baby College will be helpful or not.”

The expansion is underway. At least two organizations that have visited HCZ have subsequently modeled successful programs on their own terms, according to Lewis. The Homewood Children’s Village in Pittsburgh is planning to provide a range of social, health and educational services to an entire neighborhood based on the efforts of the HCZ.

And in Richmond, California, some 30 community agencies work together to provide educational and social services for residents within a 10-block radius. As part of their efforts, the New Generation program encourages young families to practice “positive parenting” methods similar to what’s taught in Baby College.

Author Paul Tough, who examined the Harlem Children’s Zone in his 2008 book Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, sees no reason why programs similar to Baby College couldn’t be spun off, despite the $1.5 million it costs to serve upwards of 500 parents per year and employ at least 60 staff.

“When I was reporting, it struck me as the easiest thing to replicate,” Tough says. “It is a big undertaking, but I don’t think that it is specific to Harlem. It could work anywhere.”

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.

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In a series of 10 profiles, we look at the frontier of innovation in education and how learners of all ages will likely be impacted in the years to come.

From policymakers in Washington, D.C., revamping the No Child Left Behind Act to Alice Waters, whose Edible Schoolyards are changing how students are fed-real change is afoot. Perhaps one of the biggest drivers is the internet, which is revolutionizing not only web-based learning but expanding the definition of who can be a student-be it a working parent, or a veteran of war.

We hope you'll join us in making education innovative again.

Your GOOD Guide to Education Innovation continues here.

On the campaign trail in 2007, Barack Obama laid out ambitious goals for American education. The first step in his educational plan, he told an audience in New Hampshire, was to provide "quality, affordable early childhood education to every American child." And while he observed that states had already enrolled nearly 1 million 4-year-olds in pre-kindergarten programs, he urged Americans to do better.

In championing pre-kindergarten education, Obama was giving voice to a movement that's been percolating for years. Proponents of "universal pre-K" advocate for a publicly funded half or whole day of preschool to be made available (but not mandatory) to every 4-year-old in the country. Unlike existing programs such as Head Start, the popular initiative founded in 1965 to provide early childhood education and health services to children from low-income families, universal pre-K would be open to all children, regardless of income. And the initiative would largely be run out of public schools.

About 74 percent of American 4-year-olds currently attend some form of preschool. But supporters of universal pre-K are concerned not just with scope, but also quality. "Many kids are in day care now, but there are a large number of children who still don't have access to high-quality pre-K,” says Marci Young, Project   Director for Pre-K Now, a campaign that advocates for school-based pre-K.

The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University has published a list of criteria that high-quality preschools should meet: Teachers and staff that are highly educated (ideally holding a bachelor's degree in early education), low student-to-teacher ratios, well-equipped facilities, a living wage, and age-appropriate academic instruction.

More than anything, pre-K is about educational preparedness. "The most immediate benefit is that children are better prepared to succeed in kindergarten," says Steven Barnett, co-director of NIEER. He cites decreased behavior problems and adds, "I think these things can create a kind of positive cycle of improvement all the way through the school system." And perhaps even beyond: Many pre-K supporters envision valuable benefits to society including fewer students repeating a grade, lowered crime rates, and a boost to America's ability to compete in the global labor market.

Today, Oklahoma leads the nation in public pre-K education. Close to 75 percent of its 4-year-olds are enrolled in programs available through the local schools. Most Oklahoma pre-K classrooms are in public schools, but in some cases, a teacher paid by the school system gives lessons in a Head Start center, an existing childcare center, or even in one of two new classrooms donated by a corporate partner in its office building in downtown Tulsa.

Oklahoma pre-K adheres to NIEER's criteria for quality. William Gormley, a professor at Georgetown University and the co-director of the Center for Research on Children in the United States, has been studying Oklahoma pre-K since 2001. "The program is working extremely well," says Gormley, who found that students in Tulsa pre-K posted gains over and above what would have occurred through simply aging a year. Gormley noted that while all students benefit from pre-K, disadvantaged children benefit most.  

Ramona Paul, Assistant State Superintendent of the state's Department of Education, who helped to implement the state's first pre-K pilot program in 1980, is proud of Oklahoma pre-K's universality. "There's no reason to separate children out early," she says. "Children learn from one another, and parents learn from one another. That's the American way, to try to give the best to all." Like many pre-K advocates, she believes that a universal approach is preferable to a patchwork of programs that single out only low-income kids.

But universal pre-K has its detractors as well. Opponents say that that universal pre-K would limit parental choice in educational arrangements, as resources are moved away from voucher programs that allow many low-income parents to select a preschool at will. Another common complaint is that it lavishes resources on middle-class children instead of focusing on those who need them most. Finally, that the educational boost provided by a half-day program is not intensive enough to close the achievement gap that President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act demanded school districts close. For these reasons and many more, in 2006, voters in California overturned a proposition that would have given all the state's 4-year-olds access to a half day of publicly funded preschool.

Despite facing opposition in California, the movement is gathering steam nationwide. There are now more 4-year-olds enrolled in state pre-K programs than in Head Start. Pre-K Now currently has campaigns underway in 17 states. It considers Oklahoma, Florida, and Georgia to be "pre-K for all," when more than 50 percent of a state's children are receiving services. The second tier consists of states that are gradually phasing it in: West Virginia, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Iowa, and the District of Columbia.

Last year, it seemed that the movement might get a decisive push from the Early Learning Challenge Fund, a congressional initiative that would have channeled $8 billion over as many years to states with plans to improve early childhood education. Ultimately, it didn’t survive the merging of the higher education bill with the health-care bill earlier this year.

But pre-K advocates see opportunity in the defeat. Marci Young says the setback "offers a tremendous opportunity to reauthorize our nation's education law, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act," amending it to include universal pre-K.

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.

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For most of its history, Harlem hasn't been much of a role model for other communities. In fact, despite its rich cultural history, the New York City neighborhood has often been trotted out as a generic symbol of community dysfunction: rampant crime, bad schools, broken families, and entrenched poverty.

The problem hasn't been for a lack of social programs-Harlem has long been a testing ground of cutting edge anti-poverty strategies, everything from slum clearance to Empowerment Zones. But insofar as broader prospects for defeating the culture of poverty, its fair to say that by the late 1990s there was a whole lot of well-earned pessimism, even among the experts.

That is, until Geoffrey Canada came along with a big idea and pursued it with the zeal and energy of a political revolutionary-a big idea that has since inspired President Barack Obama to reimagine social welfare in this country and to dedicate potentially billions of dollars to remake 20 other struggling neighborhoods around the country, using Canada's experiment as the model for going forward.

In the early 1990s, Canada-a black Harvard-educated social activist and educator who grew up poor in the South Bronx-was working with kids in Harlem, essentially with the same aim as everyone else: Trying to help a lucky few make it to college and become exceptions to the rule.

But the birth of his own son changed his perspective by steeping him in the science of early-stage childhood development. The importance of the first three years of life in determining the path each child would eventually follow, Canada learned, could hardly be overstated. But what if the deficits for children in Harlem didn't begin accruing in utero-what if a system were built to ensure that every child entered school on an even footing, so as to compete with their middle class counterparts.

That's a tall order, though, and one that involved fundamental changes in the nature of the community. Canada's answer? A neighborhood as "conveyor belt," essentially a community built around functional, healthy institutions capable of carrying children along from the hospital delivery room to their college graduation ceremony.

After a woman gets pregnant, she attends "Baby College," to learn parenting skills, where she also has access to comprehensive health and counseling services. Later, 4-year-olds enter a full-time pre-kindergarten program and receive the sort of brain-building intellectual stimulation typical of preschoolers in well-to-do families. And from elementary to high school, children are enrolled in demanding, high-quality charter schools with access to tutoring and after-school programs to stay on track.

Canada refers sometimes to finding a "tipping point" for Harlem-the moment when enough children and enough families were thriving, so as to uproot the whole culture of poverty. (He estimated the figure at 60 percent of families necessary to make the leap.)

After raising tens of millions of dollars to bring the new vision to life and seeing it deployed over an area of 97 square blocks with 8,000 children in the system, Canada and his Harlem Children's Zone have produced remarkable results. One Harvard economist looked at the HCZ's outcomes and remarked that that the data "changed my life as a scientist." The academic gains were simply off the charts: Third graders who were brought along on the "conveyor belt" had completely erased the achievement gap-they were testing as well in math as typical white students in the New York City's public schools.

The White House has taken notice. A year after taking office, Obama announced a program called Promise Neighborhoods that will replicate the experiment in Harlem and expand it nationwide. In his 2010 budget, the president proposed $210 million to start holistic HCZ-style programs in 20 cities. Already, interest around the country has been overwhelming-local efforts to develop Promise Neighborhoods are already afoot in Charleston, South Carolina, Chicago, Providence, Rhode Island, and Savannah, Georgia, among others. While the federal government hasn't yet laid out the criteria, selections are expected later this year. And if Obama carries through on his campaign talk, Promise Neighborhoods could eventually become multibillion dollar programs.

Of course, that notion scares a lot of people. Canada has built HCZ from the ground up with private standards of accountability and a ruthless dedication to high standards. When the HCZ playbook gets handed off to local bureaucrats who lack both Canada's fierce talents and his free hand to hire and fire ineffectual educators-Canada fired half his teachers after year one, and another third after year two-will it just become another tepid government program of the sort that had been failing in Harlem for decades? And, if there's a way to avoid that outcome, what local conditions would best correlate with success?

Even if the Promise Neighborhoods program lives past its trial phase and takes root as a new vision for fighting poverty and creating equality in America, those answers are still years away. But there's reason to be hopeful.

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.

Earlier this year, a third grade art class at the Godfrey Elementary School in Wyoming, Michigan worked on a collaborative sculpture project with Park Lane Elementary School in Sandy, Utah—and they did it over Skype. A group of sixth graders at Godfrey held a Skype session of their own, theirs with a former student who is now starioned in Bahrain. From halfway across the world, the students were able to ask the soldier questions about the geography and culture of the Middle East.

In the information age, a couple of online video chats might not sound like such a big deal, but for a struggling four-school district in Michigan, with the lowest per-pupil non-instructional costs in the state, it’s a cutting-edge bridge to a brave new world.

"Being a high-poverty area, our kids can’t get out a lot and don’t see the rest of the country and don’t get a chance to meet other students in other parts of the country,” says David Britten, superintendent of the Godfrey-Lee Public Schools. "Technology is a way to open a new window for them.”  

Britten has embraced the technologies he espouses: He pre-ordered the iPad and sends out 30-plus Tweets to his 1,000-plus followers per day—about everything from open-bid contracts for conserving energy at his schools to observing students in another school texting quiz answers to an in-class “smartboard”—and these force multipliers, to borrow a military term, are just the tip of a big tech iceberg for Britten’s kids.     

The same month the Godfrey-Lee classes went global, the Obama administration released its much-anticipated National Education Technology Plan. It calls for teachers and students to be provided with an “access device” so they can stay connected to homework assignments, events, and not to mention, each other. In many parts of the country, some schools are already way ahead of the federal government.

An "Internet bus" in Vail, Arizona, gives students a Wi-Fi connection during their commute to school and in Britten’s district (as with many others across the nation) grade schoolers are using cellphones, wireless game console controllers, and iPod Touches for classroom activities.

Starting in August, every Godfrey sixth grader will have their own netbook, while the high school is developing a new thesis project that would allow seniors to collaborate with other students in a four-state coalition including superintendents from Michigan, Utah, Iowa, and Virginia, who first met through Twitter.
Britten is clearly an early adopter. “The number one thing is that technology increases engagement significantly,” he says. “A lot of kids walk into school nowadays and think they’re entering a museum from the 1980s. It’s very uncomfortable for them and you wonder why they’re not engaged at all.”

In other words, education should be treated like any other business. “Education is a knowledge industry and in 2010 that really means access to technology,” adds Karen Cator, director of education technology for the U.S. Department of Education. “It’s not access to technology for technology’s sake, but access so that they can learn math, communicate effectively, write well, communicate with media, do research, and access primary documents.”

Cantor highlights a program in Reno, Nevada, where ESL students were given MP3 players to improve their language skills outside the classroom. "I think a lot of times people say, ‘Oh, kids know how to use technology, they’re fine,’” says Cator. “But using technology for social reasons is very different from leveraging technology to think and learn and solve complex problems.” 

For California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, this digital conversion is a long overdue no-brainer. Last June, he proposed a plan to do away with paper textbooks and replace them with Kindle and iPad-style e-readers. While the plan is platform agnostic, as are those from the federal Department of Education, it is a movement that is gaining traction.

"These e-readers are still flat and boring at this stage, but it reveals the beginning of a revolution,” says Brian Bridges, director of California Learning Resource Network, a state-funded organization that tests software, video, and internet resources for California's public school system. “I can’t say there will never be textbooks—AM radio still exists— but the textbook industry can’t wait to get out of the paper business and are actively entreating the next generation.”

And for good reason: A single e-book application has the ability to hold text, an instructional video for teachers, and an interactive feature with an embedded test. “There are so many opportunities to reach kids who are lost in this context,” adds Bridges.

While this new tech wave may seem like a Big Brother takeover to some, most urge that there's nothing to fear. “It’s definitely a concern, but no more for education than it is for society in general, and if that’s a reality for society in general then school’s the place to shine a bright light on that,” Cantor says. The challenge is also generational. “The adult world didn’t grow up in a globally networked society, but these kids have to grow up understanding and becoming digital citizens.” 

Illustration by Parliament of Owls.Edit image



 

Mondays and Fridays at the Amistad Academy in New Haven, Connecticut, begin with a drum circle and end with a pep rally. Students at the KIPP Infinity School in East Harlem are expected to attend classes for three weeks every summer. And at YES Prep Southeast in Houston, kids have to take at least one Advanced Placement course before they can graduate.

What these institutions have in common, of course, is that they’re all charter schools—independently run with classes, practices, and rituals as diverse as their student bodies. And while the almost 5,000 charter schools in the United States make up less than five percent of the total schools nationwide—caps on the number of charter schools are being lifted and that number is steadily climbing.

They are not without their detractors, however. Since 1991, when Minnesota first allowed charter schools, education experts have contentiously fought over their effectiveness, the equity of the populations they serve, and whether the privatization of school systems helps or hinders widespread reform. Publicly funded (and often supplemented with private money), charter schools don’t have to conform to many of the rules that govern traditional public schools: For instance, they can set their own schedules, teach novel curriculums, and employ non-union teachers.

And these days, charter schools’ support from people in high places is booming. With its Race to the Top competition, the Obama administration demonstrated support for charters by favoring states applying for federal funds that had expanded caps on the number of charter schools that could be established within their borders. Given that historically the Democratic party had aligned itself against charter school expansion, Obama’s support for them means one thing: The future will look like more charter schools.

Charters, like their traditional counterparts, have varying degrees of effectiveness. According to a study released last year by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, only 17 percent of charters outperformed standard public schools, whereas 37 percent produced worse results.

Recently, the State University of New York chose to close a financially unstable charter school in Albany. In addition to its fiscal failings, the school was unable to meet standards set by SUNY. Meanwhile, a joint venture between Microsoft and the Philadelphia school district—called School of the Future because each student is issued a laptop and the curriculum is largely computer-based—has struggled to develop its pioneering methodology and differentiate itself from neighborhood public schools.

Such missteps have, in part, contributed to the contentiousness surrounding charter schools. Whereas some states, such as Illinois, Louisiana, and Tennessee raised their charter caps; others, like New York, have yet to change their policies on charters. (New York, for instance, kept its number steady at 200—a move that many say kept it from winning any prize money in the first round of the Race to the Top competition.)

As a political compromise, policy analysts and politicians proposed the so-called “smart cap.” The system would allow already successful charter operators to open new schools without counting against a state’s cap number. “I think one of the risks of the smart caps idea is that it will probably reduce the variety of charter schools that are out there,” says Erin Dillon, a senior policy analyst at the Education Sector, an independent think tank.

But given the disparate results from the hodgepodge of charter schools out there, a little consistency might not be such a bad thing. “I think charters, when they started, were a little bit more of an R&D shop,” says Marco Petruzzi, CEO of Green Dot Schools, which operates 18 schools in the Los Angeles area and one in the South Bronx. “People were experimenting, particularly in low-income communities.”

Green Dot is an example of a charter school operator that works, Pertuzzi says, adding that it has no idiosyncrasies, such as drum circles or extended hours; rather Green Dot’s hallmark is an obsessive focus on “retaining each kid.” Before Green Dot took over a failing Los Angeles high school, it was sending only five percent of its students onto college; now, more than 75 percent of its kids go into four-year college programs.

Another celebrated charter network, KIPP, first started in Houston in 1994 with 50 students. It has since expanded to 82 schools in 19 states. KIPP is best known for its extended school days: 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., plus some Saturday classes and mandatory three-week summer school. There are, however, several other components to its success, says Steve Mancini, KIPP’s national spokesman. Teachers go to students’ homes to sign a commitment to excellence with parents. KIPP also encourages hard work and strength of character through its so-called “paycheck system,” where students earn money to spend at the school store and attend various field trips.

The system seems to be working: Over four years, KIPP students doubled their proficiency in both reading and math. It’s already served as the model for Achievement First, which is the organization behind Amistad Academy, and the superintendent of Houston’s schools has proposed extending the school year, citing the KIPP model as an inspiration.

Because charter schools are all unique, however, expansion poses an interesting challenge. KIPP, for example, is likely to expand only in areas where it already has established schools, says Mancini, allowing it to take advantage of economies of scale, rather than opening far-flung schools, all of which need their own dedicated support staffs.

“Right now, on the kind of per-pupil dollars that we put into public education, it's hard to keep it growing,” adds Education Sector’s Dillon.

In order for charter schools to fulfill their purpose, to provide an example of true innovation in public education, the future will likely encompass not only increased accountability, but also a great many options. And as traditional public schools learn from their charter peers the distinction between the two may one day melt away, according to Dillon: "In my head, ideally what you'd eventually come to is a lot of good public school choices for students. And for parents, it won't matter if the school is charter or not."

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In a former New York City school parking lot, crumbling asphalt has been replaced with rich, dark soil. Some children tend to patches of dense, leafy greens while others harvest vibrantly colored carrots and beets. Just behind them, a kitchen awaits, where they’ll clean and prepare their bounty before sharing a nutritious meal at a communal table. When they’re finished, they’ll add organic waste to the composter and check on the chickens clucking away in a coop—all before returning to the main school building for classes that build upon their experience of working in the garden.

Such a scene may sound like the stuff of fantasy, but New York City’s first Edible Schoolyard is scheduled to begin taking shape this summer at P.S. 216 in Brooklyn. The $1.6 million facility, which will include a movable greenhouse, indoor kitchen, dining room, and chicken coop, not to mention solar panels and a rainwater collection system, slated to be the first northeast affiliate of a program first developed by Alice Waters, chef, activist, and owner of Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California.

In 1995, Waters founded the Edible Schoolyard at a single school in Berkeley—and after years of success, it’s now in the process of going national. Already, affiliates have sprouted up in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Greensboro, with interest continuing to pour in from communities across the country.

“We have an opportunity every school day to take the school lunch and turn it into something really nourishing, tasty, and positive,” says Waters, adding that the goal of the Edible Schoolyard goes well beyond health.

“Interactive education is a way to get kids to pay attention to lessons and have the information stick forever—that’s why doing math in the garden is genius,” she says. “They’re learning a hundred things at the same time, but mostly they’re opening their senses to smell, taste, and feel, and those are the pathways into our minds.”

Leading the charge for the New York affiliate is John Lyons, president of production at Focus Features and a Chez Panisse Foundation board member. Even though the garden and kitchen classroom will be built using private money gathered through fundraising, Lyons says he initially expected resistance to the idea from city officials. Much to his surprise, Mayor Bloomberg’s administration was supportive of the idea. “Both the departments of education and health are very proactive,” said Lyons, adding, “They’re doing everything they can to be part of this movement related to school lunches and sustainability, and looking at health, nutrition, and obesity.”
    
Cities across the country appear ready to bring sustainable food habits into schools. Manhattan borough president Scott M. Stringer recently called on New York schools to embrace the Meatless Mondays program for lunches, a national movement that encourages students to eat more vegetables, which has already been adopted in Baltimore schools. And then there are Trayless Tuesdays, which have been interpreted in a few different ways—with  some schools removing Styrofoam trays from cafeterias to discourage students from taking more food than they need, with other schools use the day to pilot test biodegradable paper boats as a future replacement for wasteful trays.
    
These programs are not without criticism. Writing in The Atlantic this past January, journalist Caitlin Flanagan called the Edible Schoolyard program a “cruel trick” conjured up “by an agglomeration of foodies and educational reformers who are propelled by a vacuous if well-meaning ideology that is responsible for robbing an increasing number of American schoolchildren of hours they might other wise have spent reading important books or learning higher math.”

Rather than trying to help kids from all different backgrounds develop healthy eating habits at an early age, Flanagan opines: “The solution lies in an education that will propel students into a higher economic class, where they will live better and therefore eat better.”

But the survival-of-the-fittest approach to fixing America’s food habits is not shared by everyone. Consider First Lady Michelle Obama, who has made combating childhood obesity a personal priority, targeting school lunches as a key area for improvement. Proving that her focus on fresh food is more than just talk, last year she planted a vegetable garden on the White House’s South Lawn. At the same time, more high-profile supporters continue to stress the urgency of making significant changes, including British chef Jamie Oliver, who recently launched Food Revolution, a primetime television show aimed at American audiences.

Even with such progress, the drive to introduce healthier, more sustainable way of eating remains a daily battle for Waters. “I think of it like a war,” she says. “We’ve had 50 years of the devastating effects of fast food. Every day, you learn about the world by the way you eat, and the public school system is the only place we have that’s touching every child.”

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You might call it a hidden tax on teachers: In 2005, the United States' 3 million public school instructors each spent an average of $396 of their own money on classroom supplies, according to the National School Supply and Equipment Association. What could they possibly be buying for a combined $1.2 billion a year?

A quick visit to DonorsChoose.org, a website that connects teachers in need of learning materials with everyday people willing to make small donations to pay for them, reveals the answer: Books, balls, whiteboards, cameras, paint, pencil sharpeners, pencils—you name it, they need it.

In 2000, Charles Best founded DonorsChoose during his first year as a high school social studies instructor in New York's South Bronx. What began with requests from Best's colleagues, has since become a national nonprofit that handles $17 million in donations each year. For 2010, it expects to distribute gifts from 100,000 donors (or “citizen philanthropists,” as DonorsChoose likes to call them), making it the most visible example of a new approach to supporting education in the United States—and one that has the potential to make every American an individual stakeholder in our nation’s schools.

The website uses the same peer-to-peer approach that has made social networking sites like Facebook and Yelp such a success. Teachers begin by requesting supplies for a desired project and then the organization vets and posts them online, where visitors to the site help fulfill them. Once a request is fully funded, the nonprofit purchases the materials and delivers them to the teacher. The teacher then sends back pictures of the project in action, a cost report, and thank you letters from the class, all of which are passed along to the donors, whereby creating a nearly direct link between the classroom and its benefactors.

Called microphilanthropy, for the small amounts of money being exchanged, DonorsChoose’s strategy is similar to that of other microfinance organizations that let ordinary people offer tiny loans to budding entrepreneurs. This model will soon be applied to education costs in the United States as well.

Kiva, a microfinance group best known for facilitating loans for people in developing countries, began serving the United States in 2009, and will offer educational loans to teachers, students, and schools in the second half of this year. And public schools aren't the only ones who will benefit: Last year the nonprofit UniThrive launched a beta website linking Harvard undergraduates seeking interest-free loans of up to $2,000 with the institution’s alumni, as an alternative to supporting their alma mater. It plans to expand to other colleges in the near future.

The interactive experience is a key to their draw. For instance, at UniThrive, lenders stay in contact with the students they're supporting and can become mentors to them. At DonorsChoose, citizen philanthropists can create personal pages featuring their favorite causes. And to further widen its social web, DonorsChoose is now working on applications that weave its tools into Facebook—yet  another way for donors to relay the impact of their gifts to friends and colleagues.  

DonorsChoose has also succeeded because its platform makes raising money easy for other fund-raising initiatives. Over the past few years, nearly half the local chapters of Mustaches for Kids, an annual campaign based on the walk-a-thon model, where men leave their upper lips unshaven during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, have chosen classrooms on DonorsChoose as beneficiaries. “The site's web functionality makes it much easier to solicit donations,” says Mitch Goldman, one of Mustaches for Kids’ national coordinators. “The year our New York chapter started using the site and donations doubled to $60,000.”

But the true impact on education of DonorsChoose and other models is by opening up the channels of philanthropy and microfinance to the masses, whose success may ultimately be measured in degrees of social transformation rather than dollars.

“When people get photos of the classroom and letters from the students that they've helped, they feel an almost familial relationship with them,” says Best. He hopes this feeling will further inspire political change. The majority of the site's donors have never given to public schools before, and 60 percent say they are more interested in education reform as a result of their experience.

“For many, people this is their first vivid, tangible encounter with the serious shortfalls in public education in low-income areas,” says Best. “We hope we're turning out hundreds of thousands of people who feel a personal relationship with students and teachers in these schools, have felt the power of making a difference, and will demand change from their elected officials as a result.”

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