jreeves's blog

Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Jim Shelton is a featured guest blogger on Tavis Smiley’s “Too Important to Fail” website, following the national premiere of the PBS documentary that examines one of the most disturbing aspects of the education crisis facing America today--

Inventor and artist. A genius of “hip.” These have been some of the words used to describe Steve Jobs – a 21st-century visionary and innovator whom the world lost on the heels of National Arts and Humanities Month. His iPods, iPads, iTunes, Macs, and apps unleashed exciting new ways of communicating and learning for millions of students, who find history lessons coming to life in the palm of their hands, discover their fingertips as virtual paintbrushes, and create musical compositions at the touch of a screen.

The Arts Education Partnership (AEP), along with many others, is asking the questions: “Who will be the next Steve Jobs?” “What will be the next breakthrough to revolutionize our lives?” That’s because at the heart of AEP’s purpose is this question: “How do we harness the potential in every child and nurture a Jobs-like spirit of ‘curiosity seeker’ in each of them?” With this purpose in mind, AEP galvanizes the power of partners across many sectors to promote the essential role the arts play in helping all students succeed in school, life, and work. Unfortunately, as much as arts are a part of a complete and well-rounded education, their place in America’s P-12 education system is still threatened by narrowed curricula, conflicting policies, and budget shortfalls.

Like other areas of education innovation, there are no silver bullets when it comes to pressing questions of how best to engage parents and families, particularly in high-need schools, in order to raise student achievement. But there are informative studies as well as researchers and practitioners on the front lines of family engagement who possess insights that can point the way. With the prospect of doubling the amount of Title I funds set aside for parental and family engagement, promising policies and practices that can be pursued and brought to scale in this area of education reform are more important than ever before.

Dr. Karen Mapp, lecturer on education and director of the Education Policy and Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has joined the Office of Parental Options and Information (POI) as a consultant to explore a number of pressing issues of both policy and practice – ones that will inform and improve not only POI's work, but also the broader policy framework of parental and family engagement as it applies to Title I and other nationwide federal school improvement efforts.

The Department of Education has launched a new Web page of resources for teaching about the events of September 11, 2001. The National History Education Clearinghouse, which is supported by OII, is one of four non-federal contributors of teaching materials on the new site.

On December 20, 2010, the Department released a Request for Information (RFI) to gather technical expertise pertaining to assessment technology standards.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS have released a report entitled “Findings from Ready to Learn 2005-2010” that summarizes the results of independent research conducted under grant funding from the Ready to Learn Television program.