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X-Prize Founder Wants Ideas For Fixing Education

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-be-solved-by-a-few-friends-in-a-garage dept.

An anonymous reader writes "X-Prize Founder Peter Diamandis, speaking at SXSW, says he wants to set up a $10 million prize for fixing education — but he needs help figuring out how to target the problem. From the article: 'He said he has considered multiple directions that an Education X Prize could take, such as coming up with better ways to crowd-source education, or rewarding the creation of "powerful, addictive game" that promotes education. But he isn’t sure which way to go. There’s no shortage of high-tech visionaries and tycoons these days, running around with ideas about how to fix education. Many of them are finding, though, that technology alone isn’t enough. Exciting ideas founder quickly if they don’t sustain motivation in students who perform at widely different levels. Other challenges include the need to engage effectively with school districts, teachers and parents.'"

3 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. Unions by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally, I think parents and teachers unions are the biggest parts of the problems, or are certainly high on the list.

    1. Re:Unions by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think a voucher system would go a long way. Teachers unions hate it though.

  2. I think you have that backwards. by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So X (what is wrong with education here) has not been defined ...
    Which means that a plan to fix X is sort of impossible at this point ...

    But you've already determined that there needs to be a way of "weeding out the bad teachers" in the plan.

    Sounds to me that your REAL goal is "weeding out" some teachers. And then basing a "plan" around that.

    How about we stick to finding X first?
    What, specifically, is WRONG with education today?
    Is any other country doing it better? How?