Thinking of secondary education as a network acknowledges what we already know to be true- learning doesn't stop at the schoolhouse door. Communities are full of resources for learning. Students would be involved in creating, maintaining and staffing these centers as well as using them for concentrated study, projects and coursework. Networks of advanced learning environments and Discovery Parks may seem far-fetched to some educators, but a few lighthouse school systems already are experimenting with versions of each. Perhaps these systems have realized that the future of our society depends less on standardizing the education of our teenagers than it does on capturing their imagination and engaging them in meaningful applications of knowledge.
Standards make sense in the context of training for a chosen profession.
They are less appropriate for an education that all adolescents are required by law to receive. Duke is a professor in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia and the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Educational Design. The Thomas Jefferson Center for Educational Design, based at the University of Virginia, focuses on what the schools of the future are going to look like.