Tuesday, September 4th, live and interactive
FutureofEducation.com webinar with
Ron Wolk, to discuss his book
Wasting
Minds: Why Our Education System Is Failing and What We Can Do
About It.
Currently Chairman at
Big Picture
Learning, and the founder and former editor of
Education Week,
Teacher
Magazine, and
Quality Counts, "Wolk draws on three decades
spent in the school reform trenches to question the common assumptions
about the U.S. education system. Instead of calling for more reform
efforts, Wolk makes the case for a new schooling strategy where students
break free of the failing assembly line approach to learning and receive
the individualized instruction they deserve."
Wolk "insists that the dominant reform efforts have not closed the
student achievement gap, reduced the 'scandalous' dropout rate, or even
improved schools. Wolk asserts that simply introducing new practices and
reforms to the existing education system will not work—the system is broken
beyond repair." (Quotes from the
ASCD
press release).
See you online!
Date: Tuesday, September
4th, 2012
Time: 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern (
international times here)
Duration: 1 hour
Location: In Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Elluminate). Log in
at
http://futureofed.info. The
Blackboard Collaborate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event
if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured
for Blackboard Collaborate, please visit
the
support and configuration page.
Recordings: The full Blackboard Collaborate recording and a
portable .mp3 audio recording will be available after the show at
http://www.futureofeducation.com.
Mightybell Discussion and Resource Space: https://mightybell.com/spaces/e6f7e84d2bc72e7b
Ron's autobiography:
"In September 1981, I started
Education Week. Since then
I’ve spent virtually every waking moment reading about, thinking about, and
writing about education.
"Over the years, I visited hundreds of schools—some so bad they made
me weep, and some so good they made me weep. I attended countless meetings,
often with the brightest people in the field, and I learned from them. And,
from the editor’s seat at
Education Week and
Teacher Magazine,
I had a ringside view of the education reform movement in its first 20
years.
"For most of my professional life I’ve had one foot in journalism and
one in education. I spent the 1960s at the Johns Hopkins University, first
as editor of the
Johns Hopkins Magazine, then as assistant to
President Milton S. Eisenhower.
"I also served as vice president of Brown University from 1969 to 1978
where I was responsible for external affairs and institutional advancement.
"Both of those jobs were so gratifying and rewarding that I came to
believe with John Masefield that 'There is no earthly place more splendid
than a university.'
"Between my stints at Johns and Brown, I served on two national
commissions; The Carnegie Commission on the Future of Higher Education
under the leadership of Clark Kerr, the former and brilliant President of
the University of California; and then National Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Violence, established by President Lyndon Johnson in the
wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.
Milton Eisenhower led that effort and he summoned me from California for
one of the most interesting assignments of my life.
"I left Brown in 1978 to take over the presidency of Editorial
Projects in Education. My predecessor and dear friend, Corbin Gwaltney,
hired me for the
Johns Hopkins Magazine job and taught me a great
deal about creative journalism.
"As chairman of the board of EPE during the 1960’s, I worked closely
with Corbin and helped create and launch the
Chronicle of Higher
Education.
"After nearly 20 years at EPE/
Education Week, I retired and
moved to Rhode Island, fully intending to leave education reform behind.
But that was not to be.
"As the new century was beginning, I succeeded Ted Sizer as chair of
Big Picture Learning in Providence, which was led by Dennis Littky and
Elliot Washor—two of the most innovative and daring men I’ve ever worked
with. Under contract with the state, the duo designed and launched the
Metropolitan Career and Technical Academy, a one-of-a-kind high school that
became the model for some 70 schools established by Big Picture in the U.S.
and abroad. Tom Vander Ark of the Gates Foundation dubbed the Met his
'favorite high school' in the country and Gates made multimillion
contributions to Big Picture’s work.
"When I took over from Ted Sizer, I had already become disillusioned
with the school reform movement and deeply pessimistic about the future of
public education. Working with Big Picture and the Met, I saw that
imagination and hard work could help the neediest kids educate themselves,
and I began to hope again that we can create public schools that work.
"The old cliché is that pessimists see the glass half empty and
optimists see the glass half full. I am neither. Regarding public
education, I am an idealist: I see the glass as it is and can’t accept the
fact that it is not full."
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