My 5% plan
I
have a 5% plan too. But my plan is to try something different. It is to take
5% of US public schools, spread across every congressional district, and
eliminate age-based grades, subject-area divisions, expectations about "highly
qualified [subject area]" teachers, absolute rules on days and hours of
attendance, artificial divisions such as Special Education, Gifted and Talented,
and Advanced Placement, and, of course, all "high-stakes" tests except for the
NAEP.
In place of all that I want 1:1 wireless access. I want school buildings open
many hours of the day (if not 24), with public libraries, computers, classrooms,
and gymnasia in the evening. I want teachers committed to personal professional
development, and teachers with time to gather and learn from each other. I want
universally designed instruction and universally
designed furniture and universally designed technology. I want continuous
use of the community and the world in the classrooms.
One that is based on student passion and project oriented. Teachers as guides or co-learners. I keep hearing what we are doing works well for roughly 30% of our student population. I think any thing that we do will work well for those students. We need to change for the others.