Edison Founder Outlines Vision for Future of Education

Edison Schools' CEO Chris Whittle has outlined his vision for the future of public education in a book to be published in September. Excerpts from Crash Course: Imagining a Better Future for Public Education will also appear in the August 29 issue of Time magazine. In the book, Whittle points to the contrasts between education and many other mainstays of modern public life – such as healthcare – which have delivered dramatic improvements in the past century as a result of sustained and ample research and development spending. By comparison, R&D spending on education has been negligible, and progress has lagged behind accordingly. It is time for this to change, says Whittle.

 "Over the last decade, I've had a unique vantage point from which to learn about public education and student achievement," said Whittle. "I've learned through some extraordinary educators, such as those at Edison Schools and our school partners. And I've learned through my own experiences--both the successes and the mistakes."

 "I am prouder than ever to be associated with public education -- and more hopeful and optimistic than ever about its future," Whittle said. "Crash Course shares the best ideas I have uncovered over those years, including many I have learned through the great work of others. I hope they will help to energize a new conversation to imagine just how great our schools of the future can be."

 Edison Schools President and COO Terry Stecz predicted that the book would create a new excitement about the future of public education and help to move education back to its rightful place at the forefront of the agenda. "This is a positive, real-world assessment of things we can do -- and questions we need to ask -- to create the very best schools in the world and to give our public educators the systems and support they deserve," said Stecz.

 Whittle notes in Crash Course that the US government spends about 100 times more on healthcare research and development than it does on education. Only through enhanced and sustained R&D will the U.S. develop the breakthrough school designs that will be necessary to make leaps in student achievement, Whittle says.

 "If education is truly the priority we say it is, then we must not just fund education as it is today -- we also must invest methodically in its future improvement," agreed John Chubb, Edison's chief academic officer. "We need a systematic means to pursue great new ideas such as those offered by Chris and other public-education thinkers. And then we need a systematic way to test such ideas, to determine which ones should be brought into the classroom."

 Edison Board Chairman Benno Schmidt, the former president of Yale University, said, "Crash Course is the kind of book that intuitively makes sense. Its ideas are profound and compellingly explained. At their core, they are common-sense ideas, learned from a decade in public education --ideas that have the potential to take our schools to new levels of excellence. They deserve to be seriously debated and explored."

 Crash Course has drawn comment from two former U.S. Secretaries of Education. "I believe we are on the brink of extraordinary change in the way we teach our children," said Rod Paige. "Chris Whittle is an important agent of that change -- a fact that is amply confirmed by this powerful book..."

 "It is partisan in only one sense," said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Education and Early Childhood Development. "It is fiercely for a better future for our children."

Read and Excerpt from the book>>