BEING INTELLIGENT IN TODAY'S WORLD
Modern technology -- from pocket calculators to the Internet -- is radically changing notion of what intelligence is necessary to function in the today's world. "Our environment, because of technology, is changing, and therefore the abilities we need in order to navigate these highly information-laden environments and succeed are changing," says University of North Florida professor Susana Urbina. Driving the shift is the Internet's democratization of information. Anyone can log onto Google and in minutes find sources of information like legal documents or scientific treatises. And gadgets like the Treo or Blackberry make it possible to factor Pi or describe a weather system over the Pacific, but still be unable to recall a phone number without it. "It's true we don't remember anything anymore, but we don't need to," says Palm Computing cofounder Jeff Hawkins. "We might sit around and reminisce about having to remember phone numbers, but it's not a bad thing. It frees us up to think about other things. The brain has a limited capacity; if you give it high-level tools, it will work on high-level problems." Meanwhile, computer pioneer Doug Engelbart is hoping that society's ability to gain insight from information delivered via technology will change the way we tackle issues like arms control and global warming: "The key thing about all the world's big problems is that they have to be dealt with collectively. If we don't get collectively smarter, we're doomed," says Engelbart. (CNet News.com 19 Sep 2005)

TIME TO RETHINK THE HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
NCSA TODAY ARTICLE - September 2003
By Doug Christensen, Nebraska Commissioner of Education
Our schools are essentially the same as they were 100 years ago. The same is true for our high schools. The last times significant changes were in made in high school, were the first few years immediately after A Nation At Risk. Prior to that, one would have to go back to the late 1950's when Sputnik created a massive rethinking of the math and science curriculum of the high school.

More Than 10,000 Students Take Governors' High School Survey
Contact: John Blacksten, Office of Communications
WASHINGTON--Thousands of high school students across the country made their voices heard May 16-20 during Rate Your Future Week, a part of the National Governors Association's (NGA) drive to overhaul America's high schools. NGA had hoped to survey at least 10,000 students by the end of June, but on Friday, May 20, the 10,000th student logged on to www.rateyourfuture.org to let governors know what is going right and what is going wrong in high schools today.

NGA to 'Honor States' with $2 Million Grants
RFP for the First Phase of High School Redesign State Grants Released
WASHINGTON -- Beginning April 8th, governors committed to redesigning their state's high schools may apply for competitive grants worth up to $2 million as part of the ongoing high school reform efforts of the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices.

Remaking High School
by Kathleen Vail, American School Board Journal, November 2004
Fifty years ago, the American high school was doing fine. Most students weren't headed for college. If they earned a high school diploma, they could land a well-paying job. If they didn't graduate, they could still find good work. "But today it's a disaster," says Tom Vander Ark, director of education for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "A third of American students drop out, half of Hispanic and African Americans drop out. That's a civic, social, and economic disaster."

Critical Studies of Schooling
I’m Emily of strangechord.com. This weblog is my reading journal for an independent study class I’m taking this spring. The objective is to take a critical look at schooling in the U.S. with an eye toward the alternative education models that have arisen like social movements in response.

Learning? Yes, of course. Education? No, thanks.
by Aaron Falbel - IN 1982, A BRITISH INTERVIEWER ASKED JOHN HOLT HOW HE DEFINED the word “education.” He responded: “It’s not a word I personally use. . . . The word 'education' is a word much used, and different people mean different things by it. But on the whole, it seems to me what most people mean by 'education' has got some ideas built into it or contains certain assumptions, and one of them is that learning is an activity which is separate from the rest of life and done best of all when we are not doing anything else, and best of all where nothing else is done—learning places, places especially constructed for learning. Another assumption is that education is a designed process in which some people do things to other people or get other people to do things which will presumably be for their own good. Education means that some A is doing-something to somebody else B. I guess that, basically, is what most people understand education to be about.”

The Flight From America
By Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet. Posted May 31, 2005.
Richard Florida's new book warns that an isolated and hostile post-9/11 America may find itself on the losing end of the global competition for the ultimate economic prize: creative talent.

Look, Ma, No Schoolbooks!
[Wired] 03:10 PM Aug. 18, 2005 PT
VAIL, Arizona -- Students at Empire High School here started class this year with no textbooks -- but it wasn't because of a funding crisis. Instead, the school issued iBooks -- laptop computers by Apple Computer -- to each of its 340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools to shun printed textbooks.

Getting Honest About Graduation Rates: How States Play the Numbers and Students Lose by Daria Hall, The Education Trust, June 2005
The past year has seen unprecedented attention paid to the nation’s public high schools. Faced with stagnant achievement in the secondary grades, declining academic standing among other industrialized nations, and most important, reports from college instructors, employers, and young people themselves that high schools are not preparing students for the expectations that they’ll face once they finish, the nation’s leaders have taken heed and announced plans to transform and improve our high schools. The National Governors Association has produced An Action Agenda for Improving America’s High Schools. The Bush Administration has made high school reform a top priority. Bill Gates has advanced the conversation with his widely publicized statement that “America’s high schools are obsolete,” and has contributed $1.2 billion to the reform effort.

States Raise Bar for High School Diploma
By Lynn Olson - Published: June 22, 2005
It has been less than six months since the nation’s governors gathered for a summit on high schools, and already at least half a dozen states have enacted policies that require students to complete tougher academic programs to earn a diploma.

Rethinking the high school experience
by barbara nordby
BEATRICE - The warning bell rings at 8:10 a.m. at Beatrice High School, a modern two-story building full of skylights, exposed brick and trophies. Chelesy Walters, a sophomore who wants to be a nurse, swings her backpack over her shoulder.

THE REVOLUTIONARY IMPLICATIONS OF EDWARD DE BONO'S LATERAL THINKING
The significance of de Bono's twenty-five year old theory is momentous, universally applicable and dimly realised. Adapted and updated from an article in the London Sunday Times
by Nicholas Berry, 4 October 1992

Examine the National Board Teaching Standards
NBPTS is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization governed by a board of directors, the majority of whom are classroom teachers. Other members include school administrators, school board leaders, governors and state legislators, higher education officials, teacher union leaders and business and community leaders.