Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education.Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education. Christopher Whittle Christopher Whittle is the name of more than one potentially notable person:
n. The source of a river. Books). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chris Whittle launched Edison Schools in 1991, having already prospered with "Channel One," which introduced a specialized (and commercialized) television news show into U.S. high schools. Edison now operates dozens of schools and provides full- and part-time education services to hundreds of thousands of children. It is the biggest and best-known of America's burgeoning education-management organizations (EMOs). In this book, Whittle distills the lessons he has learned about K--12 education and the changes it needs, lessons that he presents with self-assuredness and passion. (Those who have seen him in action hail him as a preternaturally pre·ter·nat·u·ral adj. 1. Out of or being beyond the normal course of nature; differing from the natural. 2. Surpassing the normal or usual; extraordinary: gifted salesman.) He goes from suggesting useful incremental changes in today's school system to a dazzling visionary exercise in what that system could be like in 2030, built around very different sorts of school systems and "school companies." Then he sketches a hugely ambitious federal law (the "Education Innovation Act of 2007") to generate the R & D dollars and leadership to move K--12 education from incrementalism in·cre·men·tal·ism n. Social or political gradualism. in  cre·men to transformation. You can skip the epilogue,
though: 25 pages of hokey hok·ey adj. hok·i·er, hok·i·est Slang 1. Mawkishly sentimental; corny. 2. Noticeably contrived; artificial. hok "letters to leaders" meant to motivate them for the changes ahead. |
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