Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

There Are Good Schools Out There - Bridging Differences - Education Week

There Are Good Schools Out There - Bridging Differences - Education Week:

There Are Good Schools Out There

Today, Todd Sutler of the Odyssey Initiative joins Deborah Meier for a two-week blogging engagement.
Dear Debbie,
It is an honor to be invited to correspond with you here. I have enjoyed reading your blog for years, and I am lucky to now have you as a friend and adviser to The Odyssey Initiative, an organization I founded with Michelle Healy and Brooke Peters last year. When we set off to research some of America's best schools, it never crossed our minds that we would get a chance to sit down and talk to you. When we met, I was pleased to find that your outspokenness in person was just as engaging and inspiring as it is in your writing. I am disappointed, however, that your readers did not benefit from more of that frankness during your conversation with Mike Petrilli. More on that disappointment in a moment.
Matt Candler, of 4.0 Schools, recently introduced me to Clayton Christensen's book, The Innovator's Dilemma. Christensen's theory, I believe, happens to describe the education reform movement of the last 20 years. The "dilemma," he argues, is the choice companies face when deciding whether to allocate time and resources to address their customers' current needs or to anticipate their future needs. Some companies are reticent to inves