I regularly read the SmartBrief on EdTech. The following two items are copied from the July 28, 2011 issue available at http://alquemie.smartbrief.com/alquemie/servlet/encodeServlet?issueid=F0FD6D26-5568-44B9-B59D-B79CBE776638&lmcid=archives.

States are faced with labeling more schools as failing under NCLB.

States tallying their standardized test scores this summer are beginning to feel the impact of the federal No Child Left Behind law's ever-increasing adequate yearly progress benchmarks. In New Mexico, 87% of schools were deemed to be failing under NCLB, and in Georgia the number of schools meeting AYP benchmarks dropped to 63.2% in 2011 from 71% last year. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who predicts that 82% of U.S. schools will be labeled failing under the law by next year, is considering providing waivers for states if Congress does not revamp the law. The Huffington Post (7/26)

How could schools transition to competency-based learning?

A new report recommends ways in which U.S. schools could transition from age-based grade levels to a competency-based learning system, which would allow students to advance at their own pace as they master lessons -- rather than at prescribed intervals. Some experts argue that competency-based learning has benefits for all students, from those who are gifted through those who struggle. However, such a system would require states and districts to eliminate seat-time rules, rework teacher development and create new measurements of program quality, the iNacol report states. T.H.E. Journal (7/26)

I am sure that you are aware that it is not difficult to create a test that most students will fail. Teachers know that this is not a useful exercise in test creation and test taking. However, evidently our Federal Government does not understand it. It has created a method of assessing schools in which many fail. Indeed, Education Secretary Arne Duncan predicts that next year about 82% of our schools will be labeled as failing. My goodness! That certainly is a strange approach to improving our educational system!

I find the second of the two SmartBrief articles to be more useful. We know that students have varying cognitive abilities and learn at different rates. Roughly speaking, in a typical K-12 classroom, one or more students can learn at twice the rate of the class average, while one or more learn at half the rate of the class average. Our educational system pays some attention to this. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning advocates a major change in our education system.

Our current educational system is based on the capabilities and limitations of an individual classroom teacher. In dealing with 20 to 30 (or more) students at a time, a teacher must implement a great deal of uniformity. This is a time-honored approach to education.

Now, highly interactive intelligent computer-assisted learning (HIICAL) is gradually getting better and more available. Substantial research indicated that “on average” students learn more and better than via our conventional approach to teaching and learning. That is not surprising, as HIICAL provides a type of individualization that a teacher working with a large group of students cannot provide. We have long known the advantages of individual tutoring. HIICAL represents a step between our conventional full class instruction and individual tutoring. HIICAL gradually gets better through research in teaching and learning, and through increases in compute power.

There are many very important components of schooling that HIICAL does not address. For example, consider the learning and social interactions of children throughout a school day, in learning and playing together. The social interactions are a very important component of our schooling system. My forecast is that over time we will see more and more of the curriculum content being delivered and assessed via HIICAL, but that schools somewhat like we have today will continue to exist because of their very important socialization components. It is important that children (and people of all ages) become skilled in a very broad range of  human to human interactions.