Historic Network for Public Education Conference Issues Call for Congressional Hearings into Test Abuse
I just left Austin, Texas, where I participated in the money-soaked SXSWedu conference for a couple of days. This was quite a contrast to the Network for Public Education conference which concluded on Sunday. Monday night I met Joel Klein, who introduced the latest Amplify tablet and curriculum package, which, it is promised, will deliver Three X the reading, Three X the writing, and Three X the feedback, all Common Core aligned.
But the scene was very different last weekend at the University of Texas campus a few miles away. There, about 400 teachers, parents, students and education activists gathered to discuss, debate and learn together. The Network for Public Education was launched just a year ago, so ths was sort of a coming of age event. (Disclosure -- I am the treasurer and co-founder of the organization.)
While there were reporters from all over the world at SXSWedu, there were only one or two at the NPE conference. Although the hashtag #NPEconference was the number one trending hashtag all weekend, only a couple of news stories have come out about the event.
And the scarcity of corporate-stream reporters was more than made up for by the abundance of a new breed of citizen journalists, the education bloggers. Former Connecticut legislator turned investigative blogger Jonathan Pelto led a spirited session where dozens of bloggers shared ideas and experiences. Many of these writers are already sharing their own takes on the conference.
There were some real highlights to the event. John Kuhn, the superintendent of a small district in