by Claire Miller
As Arthur Levine sees it, the U.S. is in a time of transition.
“We’re living through a period of change and so are all of our social institutions, including education,” said Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, at the Nov. 9 Research Wednesdays. “We’re trying to figure out what to do with all of these broken institutions.”
The schools of the future, Levine postulates, will focus more on individualized education for students and an expansion of the kinds of educational providers – hybrids of public and private schools and the for- and non-profit entities that lead them. New technologies will help teachers move away from traditional textbooks in favor of a combination of learning materials, and allow universities to offer more online degree programs.
These potential trends in education policy are not set in stone, however. Levine said that changes in education are dependent upon educational leaders stepping up and informing policymakers about their experiences.
“We are where we are because we haven’t let our expertise shape our policy enough,” he said. “I don’t think any generation in modern times has ever had a greater opportunity to inform policy and practice in this country. That’s the challenge that faces each one of us today.”
The Research Wednesdays Speaker Series is designed to fulfill three goals: to provide a platform for explorations of new ways of conducting and disseminating educational research, to discuss new methods of mentoring doctoral students in an effort to enhance their development as researchers, and to fill a professional development need by providing access to cutting edge researchers at the state and national levels.
For more information on Levine and the Research Wednesdays Speaker Series, visit http://education.gsu.edu/main/coe_events.htm.
