Education is about academic excellence and developing human capacity. Education is our collective way to prepare children and adults to function effectively in the real, and constantly changing, world. Academic excellence, real world competence and good character need to develop simultaneously and at all grade levels.
Education takes place in schools and beyond schools. Great schools are critical, and they include public, idependent, parochial and home schools. But education also occurs in many other places, ranging from the home to the workplace to social networks of young and old.
Effective assessment reveals what people know and what they can actually do. There is a role for testing. But testing needs to be integrated into the context of how people perform in real life. Even academic excellence needs to be demonstrated in action. And all of it shapes and is shaped by the the world views that are picked up in and out of school.
Great teaching is indispensable. Teaching is a highly demanding profession. Great teachers can and do integrate rigorous academic practice with student engagement in complex experiences that develop both practical competence and the higher order functions that are essential for success in the real world.
Education is intended to prepare students for the next century and not the last one. Curriculum and standards need to be approached from the perspective of the information explosion, rapid change, accelerating obsolescence of taken-for-granted "facts", the interconnectedness of every subject area, the importance of relationship, the power of big ideas, and boundary breaking technologies.
Great schools are apprentice communities. Every aspect of the curriculum and the human qualities that are espoused need to be lived and experienced in every facet of life in school. The entire school needs to be a powerful learning community, and the system needs to foster and nourish the conditions that make powerful learning and great teaching possible.
