Welcome to Ed100

You want to help make education work better. But where to begin? As a parent, teacher, leader, or concerned citizen, how do your efforts fit in?

There are many competing ideas about how to improve education; Ed100 systematically explores them in plain language. In about 100 core posts, Ed100 aims to help you make sense of the big picture.

1. Subscribe to Ed100.org via Email for a weekly digest of Ed100 posts
2. Subscribe using RSS
3. Follow Ed100 on Facebook
4. Follow @Ed100_ on Twitter

Click Here to begin reading from the start!

Unlike most blogs, Ed100 is built on a long-term structure. The first 100 posts explore the following proposition: Education is Students and Teachers spending Time in a Place for learning with the right Stuff and a System that $upports Success. Subsequent posts call attention to important developments and help put them in the context of the big picture.

California’s Ed Finance Morass

In a few short months, California voters will again take up their part-time role as legislators. As usual, we will be asked to weigh in on policy questions of great complexity in the blunt form of a yes-or-no vote on initiatives.
Several important measures will relate to education funding and finance, …

How Should the Success of Schools Be Measured?

This entry first appeared on TOPed.org in answer to the question “How should we measure our schools?”
The success of schools, per se, must not be our primary concern. Schools, after all, are only a means to an end. The center of the proverbial target is simpler, but even more …

Schools Are Like Businesses

This entry first appeared on http://toped.org
Schools are like businesses, but not in the way most think.
I frequently find myself in conversations comparing “how it works in business” with “how it works in education.” A popular version goes something like this:
Schools are like factories. They take raw materials (kids and textbooks) …

Less School = More Problems

It appears ever more likely that California state revenues for education will come up short, again, abruptly. When the money comes up short there are only a few ways to make the numbers work:

employ fewer teachers,
reduce their wages, or
reduce their hours.

School districts across California will have to choose door #3 …

Kids Can Teach

What would happen if you cemented an internet-connected computer into a wall in an impoverished area of an Indian city? Enterprising education researcher Sugata Mitra decided to find out. He watched with amazement as kids with little or no education clustered around the wall and found ways to do things …

Can the Content of Character Be Measured?

My daughter’s first-grade report card came in two sections, one related to her academic work and the other for her teacher’s feedback about the character she displayed in school. Did she play well with others? Did she participate in class? Did she take risks?
A focus on character is nothing new; …