A Google employee blogs:
A fantastic post about disrupting education.
Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi “calls out” a comment I left on his blog. The comment excerpts from this blog entry of mine.
From After the Frat, a blog:
A brilliant idea by Frank Ruscica about how to finally get out of this economic quagmire.
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On March 5, 2010, the U.S. Dept. of Education released a draft (.pdf) of the executive summary of their 2010 National Educational Technology Plan.
An excerpt:
The model of 21st century learning described in this plan…leverages the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size-fits-all curriculum, pace of teaching, and instructional practices.
It’s not complicated… 
The just-released survey (.pdf) is (sub-)titled: Primary Sources — America’s Teachers on America’s Schools. 40K public-school teachers were surveyed.
An excerpt:
To keep today’s students engaged in learning, teachers recognize that it is essential for instruction to be tailored to individual students’ skills and interests. More than 90% of teachers say that differentiated assignments are absolutely essential for improving student achievement and engaging students in learning.
Workforce of One, a Harvard Business Press book, is scheduled to be in stores in early May, 2010.
An excerpt (from an advance copy):
You might have trouble imagining how employees could set their own salaries with no organizationally imposed limits. But that’s exactly what people do in the U.S. Navy. The navy has an online job-auction site where employees can bid on hard-to-fill jobs; whoever offers the lowest salary and meets the qualifications gets the job.
…The result? This democratic, market-based system means that the navy’s top performers who seek extra education and a broader range of assignments will have the opportunity to be paid more and advance more quickly on their own timetable, based on their own custom-designed career paths — not the navy’s.
…The navy is considering eventually posting all jobs on its online job-auction site to allow all personnel to define their own pay and career paths using a market-based system.
From Rethinking the MBA [sic], a forthcoming 2010 book:
In Fall 2007, the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) adopted a new curriculum…The curriculum was the school’s most far-reaching change in thirty years , emphasizing customization…
From a January 28, 2010 report (.pdf):
In 2007, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm launched the No Worker Left Behind (NWLB) Initiative, which provides up to $10,000 over two years for any unemployed or underemployed worker seeking education or training that leads to a high-growth job in the state. In its first eighteen months of the program more than 60,000 workers entered some form of skills training, and 72 percent of those completing training have been able to obtain or retain employment, despite the fact that, as of September 2009, there were ten unemployed individuals for every job opening in the state.
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Standardized education is beating a hasty retreat.
From the February 17, 2010 edition of the New York Times:
Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college.
…The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore.
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(This article adapts a two-part series I wrote for popular blog Zero Hedge. An excerpt from this entry has been noted approvingly by Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi. Thanks kindly for any feedback.)
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I was just surfing around the site. Lots of smart, inspiring submissions…
From the February 11, 2010 edition of The Guardian newspaper:
[British PM Gordon] Brown also said he wanted to build up Britain’s universities. “There are 1,000 universities being built in India and we want to be part of this educational export. I think that education will be perhaps our biggest export in 20 years’ time,” he told the Financial Times.
The site: “How should we collaborate with…businesses?”
My submission (with supporting info): Advocate for ‘jobs stimulus’ that subsidizes consumers and producers of customized education, and operators of associated online markets.
Predictable?
You can comment and/or vote at the site.
From The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment To Equity Will Determine Our Future, a forthcoming 2010 book by Stanford professor and Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond:
21st-century schools should integrate new technologies for learning and create personalized structures for supporting students.
…Also key is the creation of networks that allow teachers, leaders, schools and districts to learn from one another.
…Although it would be romantic to assume that massive change can come exclusively from school-to-school networking, the power of learning systems has proven to be stronger than the power of mandates to transform schools.
In no small part, the markets described on this site are designed to expedite the build-out of such networks. For details, see the Jobs Quickly page.
A guest post of mine on popular blog Zero Hedge
Part one of a two- or three-part series. Written in the ZH style…
To learn about Zero Hedge, see this feature story from the September 27, 2009 issue of New York magazine.
UPDATE (2/15/10): Part two is online at ZH.
UPDATE (2/26/10): ZH is one of “Ten Wall Street Blogs You Need to Bookmark Now,” according to a February 25, 2010 article on the website of the Wall Street Journal.