"How do we sleep while our beds are burning?" A podcast with Jim Daly
"That is part of the chorus from a song released twenty years ago by the amazing Australian band Midnight Oil. Today, it could serve as the clarion call for public education." James Daly
James Daly
Welcome to a Cool Careers edition of Total Picture Radio with Peter Clayton reporting. Joining us today: James Daly, Editor in Chief of Edutopia, a print and digital publication from The George Lucas Educational Foundation that follows innovation in K through 12 public education. We had the pleasure of meeting Jim at the recent mediabistro Circusin New York.
"Our schools are going to change more in the next ten years than they have in the last hundred. Everyone reading these words will be part of that change. Get ready." Jim Daly
Is your website and magazine designed primarily for teachers?
One of the questions you asked the audience in NY - what determines who's in 7th grade? (age)
About Edutopia
Our Vision
Kids today. No previous generation has experienced anything like the current pace of transformational societal change. Yet, in light of extraordinary advancements in how we interact with each other and the world, our system of education has been frustratingly slow to adapt.
The George Lucas Educational Foundation was created to address this issue. Our vision is of a new world of learning. A place where kids and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve are empowered to change education for the better. A place where schools have access to the same invaluable technology as businesses and universities -- where innovation is the rule, not the exception. A place where children become lifelong learners and develop the technical, cultural, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the twenty-first century. A place of inspiration, aspiration, and an urgent belief that improving education improves the world we live in.
Edutopia.org: An in-depth and interactive resource, Edutopia.org offers practical, hands-on advice, real-world examples, lively contributions from practitioners, and invaluable tips and tools.
Edutopia magazine: The preeminent publication for promoting positive change in education, Edutopia magazine presents a continual flow of fresh ideas and inspiring success stories.
Edutopia video: Through an extensive offering of documentaries, Edutopia video is a catalyst for innovation by helping educators and parents, as well as business and community leaders, see and understand pioneering best practices.
To understand more about why we are passionate about our work, see our Topics and what our founder and chairman, George Lucas, has to say about education.
Edutopia, the magazine of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, has announced its annual list of ten predictions for the school year ahead. Featured in the September 2007 issue of the magazine and on Edutopia.org, this look to the future for ideas to improve education is based on the knowledge of experts and lessons learned over the course of the school year before.
"At Edutopia, we look at the big picture," said Edutopia editor in chief James Daly. "While we don't expect the problems that beset public education to be solved tomorrow, we do believe that our predictions, which range from possible to probable, serve as a guide to encourage those in education to strive for significant change."
Each prediction is accompanied by a persuasive brief by an Edutopia writer. For more details, please visit our What's Next page.
Edutopia's Ten Predictions for the School Year Ahead
Chinese will be the new French.
No Child Left Behind will be accepted, if grudgingly, as a fact of educational life, but will evolve by policy advocates and new congressional leadership. Online learning for students and teachers will grow exponentially.
Increasing access to digital content will lead to an exponential growth in school-based online communities on the MySpace/YouTube model.
As the presidential campaign gains momentum, civics and politics will be front and center in the classroom.
Merit pay and other new approaches will be seen as the best answer to getting and retaining gifted teachers.
A -like crisis in scientific literacy will lead to a revitalization of science teaching.
After-school and off-site programs using community expertise will take on the bulk of arts teaching.
Vocational-education academies will energize the American workforce.
U.S. education will increase and adapt school time to match student needs.
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?
Written by James Daly
That is part of the chorus from a song released twenty years ago by the amazing Australian band Midnight Oil. Today, it could serve as the clarion call for public education.
Our educational system faces some of the toughest challenges it has met since America's first public school opened in Boston in 1635. Nearly 40 percent of students entering high school fail to graduate on time. More than 7,000 kids drop out of high school every day. Almost half of all beginning teachers leave the profession within five years. If that isn't exhausting enough, the No Child Left Behind Act has many educators feeling trapped in a test-driven system that stifles the individuality integral to great teaching.
Here's more: In our great but bedraggled state of California, where our editorial offices are based, we have an action-hero governor who has proposed cutting $4.5 billion from the state education budget (and this after declaring 2008 "The Year of Education.") The governor has also proposed cutting funding for programs like special education, child nutrition, and before-school and after-school programs. I live in the town of Alameda. In order to submit a balanced budget -- as required by state law -- the Alameda Unified School District has proposed cutting $4.5 million over the next two years. This will be done by eliminating high school sports, Advanced Placement programs, middle school guidance counselors, the jobs of several dozen teachers, and music for grades 1-3 -- as well as closing elementary, middle, and high schools. Multiply that by hundreds of communities across the state.
California is the state where 13 percent of the country's kids go to school. It's the largest public education system in the United States, and it's about to get pushed off a cliff. What does this fate foretell for the rest of the country? I believe that if we don't get our public education system in order, this country will disappear as an economic powerhouse within a decade. You're already starting to see that on multiple fronts. We're in a vortex, and it's spiraling down.
But there's hope. Each day, hundreds of thousands of educators fight the good fight, battling intractable bureaucracies with intellectual and technical innovation designed to create great schools and inspired students. These educators have awakened to two simple facts: The feds can't save them, and the state -- as has been proven time and again -- will abandon them. Only through a grassroots holistic effort of local improvement can America's educational system be repaired.
That's where we, at Edutopia, hope to help. Our main goal is to help the desperately needed campaign of local school improvement flourish. That ideal is best summated in our new tagline: What Works in Public Education. Good educators are passionate about what they do. They are drawn to teaching not for the need to make money but with the indescribable desire to take the nurturing gene we have in our head and apply it to the common good. They're there to educate minds and perhaps inspire lives.
We, too, want to be part of the solution rather than sink into the quicksand of the problem. That's why we have an increased emphasis on workable solutions for average educators and administrators in typical budget-crunched classrooms and school districts. We want to remind educators why they got into the profession, and we hope this increased focus on what works is both inspiring and useful.
Our schools are going to change more in the next ten years than they have in the last hundred. Everyone reading these words will be part of that change. Get ready.
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