Stephen Downes

This is a reasonable educational policy - perhaps the only reasonable educational policy, but it continues to elude our policy-makers. One wonders why. Here's Diane Ravitch: "If we were to focus on the needs of children, we would make sure that every pregnant woman got good medical care and nutrition, since many children born to women without them tend to have learning disabilities. We would make sure that children in poor communities have high-quality early childhood education so that they arrive in school ready to learn. We would insist that their teachers be trained to support their social, emotional, and intellectual development and to engage local communities on behalf of their children... And we would have national policies whose goal is to reduce poverty by expanding economic opportunity."