The purpose of this website is to offer information and insights about why paradigm change is the only way to significantly improve student learning in schools.
This page addresses:
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The urgency of the current state of pre-collegiate education (public and private, from preschool through 12th grade
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The problem causing that urgency
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The solution to the problem
More details are provided on other pages, but this is the best place to start.
Watch a fun TED video by Sir Ken Robinson on the need for paradigm change.
Check out Dr. Reigeluth on Radio!
In May 2016, Charles Reigeluth was interviewed on “Issues Today” with Bob Gourley, which was broadcast on many radio stations. You can listen here!
Join the Facebook Group
for Reinveinting Schools
This website is based on Reinventing Schools: It's Time to Break the Mold by Charles M. Reigeluth and Jennifer R. Karnopp.
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View the book in Google Books here
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iBook version of this website is coming soon!
1. The Urgency
There is a great urgency for change in education.
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Low international rankings. The U.S. scores 17th out of 34 countries in reading, 27th in math, and 20th in science, according to the OECD. Details
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Low student proficiency. More than half of high school seniors in the U.S. are not proficient in reading, 75% are not proficient in math, and the score gap between black and white students widened by 5 points from 1992 to 2013, according to NAEP. Details
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Poor 21st century skills. Society and the workplace have changed in ways that make it much more important to develop critical thinking, communication skills, collaboration skills, and creativity, as well as life and career skills and information, media, and technology skills, according to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
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Weak affective development. There are great shortcomings in students’ emotional development, social development, and character development. The negative consequences include personal, social, economic, and political effects.
2. The Problem
In spite of the urgency, American education systems as a whole are better than ever at doing what they were designed to do. The problem is that society has changed in ways that make our educational systems, often called the factory model of schools, obsolete, just as changes during the industrial revolution gradually made the horse and buggy obsolete as a transportation system.
The horse and buggy are neither good nor bad; they are simply inappropriate to meet our current transportation needs. Similarly, our currentparadigm of education is inappropriate to meet our current educational needs.
- Exploding costs. The inflation-adjusted cost of a complete K-12 public education is 300% of what it was in 1970, not counting the billions of dollars spent on educational reforms since then, according to a study by the Cato Institute.
3. The Solution
This website helps you explore …
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What paradigm change is
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Why it is the only solution for education today
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What the new paradigm is like
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Some of the existing new-paradigm school systems
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How to help other school systems transform themselves to the new paradigm
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What you can do to help
These topics are all listed in the menu bar on the top.
