In this episode, Gordon Rogers, a veteran of startups in the field of digital education and learning management, discusses MOOCs and crediting.

Almost every state has been sued for not investing enough in education, especially in poorer districts. But localities may be more to blame.by Mary Ellen McIntireWhat’s the right amount to spend on schools to get the best outcomes?The average spending per student in school districts around the country decreased in 2011 — the latest year that data is available — and began years of declining expenditures, according to an April report on K-12 funding by State Policy Reports.Read the rest of the story on Governing.

by Jennifer GreenOver the last two weeks, teachers in Baltimore have worked tirelessly to support their students, their schools and their community. I have two words for them: thank you.Ashley Smith, a fourth grade teacher at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School in Southwest Baltimore, used her classroom as a safe harbor where her students could openly express their reactions to the Baltimore riots through their writing. “I knew the students would be coming into class… with a lot of questions about what had taken place,” she told ABC News. Ashley relied on her skills as an educator to encourage an open, healthy dialogue among her students. She not only gave them a space to share their feelings by writing essays, but also established an open communication channel between peers. It was through this channel that her students’ discussed the power of peaceful protests and the tragedies that often result from violent uprisings.Read the rest of the story on the Huffington Post.

On April 27, a 16-year-old boy allegedly fired two shots inside North Thurston High School in Lacey, Washington. He probably never expected what happened next: He was tackled by teacher Brady Olson.Olson put his life on the line to save his students. When everyone ran away from the shooter, Olson ran toward the shooter to stop him.The popular civics teacher is being hailed as a hero. But in a statement released to the press, he said, “As always, students come first, and today was no different.”This happens over and over again. We see and hear stories of teacher heroics on a nearly regular basis. But whether they are standing between attackers and students, listening to students’ heartbreaking stories, or finding lunch money for a kid who has none, teacher heroics are more common than we realize.To be sure, like any other profession, education has its share of incompetence. There are some teachers and administrators who should not be in the profession. No one disputes that. But the ones who share Olson’s belief that ‘students come first’ are the keepers, the ones who often don’t get enough credit for all the good they do. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Mr. Olson probably has performed some heroics before, on many other levels, like almost every other teacher I know.They all deserve our thanks, not just during this Teacher Appreciation Week, but all year long.After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, I wrote a piece for CNN titled “Above all, teachers are in it for the kids.” It seems appropriate to revisit that article this week. It summarizes my views on teacher heroics, but I think I’m not the only person who feels this way. Read it and let me know your thoughts.In the meantime, teachers, thank you for all you do. You are heroes, everyday.

by Eryn Brown and Teresa WatanabeSince state laws made it harder for California elementary school kids to get their hands on sugary drinks and junk food snacks on campus, researchers found, students’ risk of becoming overweight or obese fell slightly — but mostly if they came from higher-income neighborhoods.Examining body mass index measurements of 2,700,880 fifth-graders in the state over 10 years, researchers found that students in those neighborhoods saw their odds of exceeding a healthy weight fall by about 1% a year. For all other students, the trends remained essentially flat.Read the rest of the story on the L.A. Times. 

MOOCs: A Revolutionary PerspectiveJoin us for an online Town Hall with Gordon Rogers on Wednesday May 6th from 10:00am – 11:00am ESTA number of parallels exist between the new frontier of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their recognition as “academic currency” and the fate of the doomed Continental, the currency of the American colonies. Just as the revolutionary banknotes lacked credibility, the assessment instruments used by students to prove knowledge and mastery of MOOCs continue to face an uphill battle for authenticity. Until these issues are overcome, online education will be, in the eyes of many, “not worth a Continental”.But efforts are underway to achieve wider recognition and acceptance of alternative forms of credentialing. They are taking place in universities, community colleges and coding “boot-camps.” They generally fall into a framework known as “Competency Based Education” (CBE), representing the first significant step in the unbundling of American higher education. Reinventing a credentialing system that has remain largely unchanged for a century is not going to happen in a semester, but cracks are beginning to appear in the ivory tower’s foundation. Gordon Rogers, a 25-year veteran in the field of digital education and learning management, will talk about the “unbundling” trend in education and what it means for students, business and the academic world.