After just a few weeks “blogging,” I wanted to take this opportunity on a beautiful, sunny 70+ degrees Friday to thank everyone who has clicked on my blog and taken the time out of their busy lives to read my perspectives on 21st century learning. Hopefully, the time was not ill-spent. While I will continue to expand on my own perspectives about 21st century education, I also use the blog to give credit and refer to some of the thought leaders who I have come to admire for their courage and their forward-thinking, research-backed ideas about how and why we need to reinvent education. Some of them have also become trusted professional colleagues; you know who you are 
While the Obama Stimulus Bill’s process was very partisan and, of course, not quite embraced with the plurality that followed his election to the Presidency, the $100+ Billion allocated to education should go a very long way toward injecting the “fuel” required to start the process of real reform in our education system. However, it is important that everyone understands that money alone is not the “catch-all” panacea that will save our children from being left behind in the 21st century work environment.
As my friends at the Innosight Institute stated so eloquently in Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change The Way The World Learns, the process has to change. So before this money is ill-spent, it is critical that educators truly a fresh approach to learning and understand that long-held assessment standards must be radically reworked. I can’t tell you how many times in recent months I have heard: “does it align with the standards?” “We need to get the students ready for the tests.” I ask you to please stop this nonsense. The 21st century requires 21st century standards, and my biggest hope will be that the frameworks being developed by the Partnership For 21st Century Skills are mandatory standards that get integrated into every public school system in the United States. It may not be perfect, but from what I have seen thus far, their ideas a very much a strong step in the right direction.
Over the coming days/weeks, I will continue to challenge your thnking, as well as make you aware of interesting initiatives/ideas that come across my desk.
Until then, as we say in Japan, “de wa mata”, or “See you soon”
Al
