Last week we invited readers to submit their own ideas for the forthcoming education X PRIZE. Here are a few of the responses.
Patrick J. Wolf, a professor of education at the University of Arkansas, thinks the award should be fairly open-ended, going to a "clearly defined policy intervention that is demonstrated to consistently boost the achievement of minority students by at least half a standard deviation within three years after being implemented." Mark McClinchie also favors rewarding achievement gains; he suggests that the prize purse go to an upstart school that "outperforms the local school district in every conceivable manner."
Henry Olsen, Director of the National Research Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute, wants to see a radically redesigned classroom that uses technology to individually tailor curriculum and instruction to students with different abilities and personalities. Such a program "would finally permit teachers to teach more than 25-30 kids in a given hour setting" and "remake American education through a productivity revolution." Allen Majorovic similarly favors rewarding technological innovation, proposing an online testing system that provides data-rich feedback to teachers and parents.
Finally, Bob Bell thinks the prize should award "the first school of a general, unselected population that could get 3% of its population to pass the SATs with a certain minimum score by the age of 16."
Rumor has it that Tom Vander Ark himself will be scouring this week's Gadfly for suggestions. So thank you, readers, for your input.