A word to al those budding Republican wannabe Congress people -- you can't behave like its DC until you get there.

Ethics Panel Reprimands Fla. State Senator. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- A legislator serving on the state Senate's ethics committee was formally reprimanded Thursday for soliciting money from lobbyists to help pay for an overseas trip for her and a friend.... [AP Top Political News At 11:50 a.m. EDT]

6:32:09 PM    

Secretary spelling testified recently to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (an interesting grouping -- cradle to grave -- no?).  Anyhow, she says all the right things about transforming our current model of education :

Technology is changing the world faster than our imagination can predict it. Our high schools may be very different places a decade or two from now. The old, regimented "factory"-type model, based on time spent in classrooms, may give way to a new "competency-based" model that measures progress according to what kids have learned, not the date on the calendar.

Such a model would take full advantage of community resources, private sector innovations and the advanced, interactive technologies kids and teachers use at home and school. We already see it in the movement to create "Digital High Schools" and the explosive growth of "Distance Learning." It is a smarter, faster, more student-centric model of learning.

Right on.  So, why is Cobb County spending $100 million without changing the model?  Why is Athens-Clarke reversing the model change that occurred when they adopted the Barnes laptop program?  What is Muscogee County doing with their $53 million for technology?

6:13:49 PM    

Amid all the negative stories concerning the Cobb County School Board decision to put laptops in the hands of all middle schoolers (see AJC and MDJ today), here is one that speaks, anecdotedly at least, of the success of such a program, one funded by Governor Barnes for three years.

Yet, despite all the evidence given by the Clarke-Athens school board that giving students a laptop to take home, to work with personally as their own can and does produce a positive impact on the quality of education ... the board has decided to take those machines and redistribute them as classroom machines thus reverting to the failed, old model of letting technology sit in the corner only to be used as a "busy" time device.  And of course, this method has yet to prove to be a positive influence on the quality of education received.

When will our administrators learn that technology can help only if you change the way you educate?

BTW, Terry Frazier is absolutely right as to why the Cobb plan will fail.  The Barnes model addressed those issues -- and it succeeded.

On a tangent -- Frazier's analysis is a model of what good reporting on this issue should have produced.  Alas, none of the "professional" media outlets have done such -- in fact, until today, none of the reports on the Cobb laptop program have even alluded to the three year state laptop program.  And, these are the entities that say they defend democracy?

7:37:45 AM