We need to add an “A” for art to the national STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education agenda and turn it to STEAM, writes guest columnist John Maeda.

John Maeda is president of Rhode Island School of Design and the author of “The Laws of Simplicity and Redesigning Leadership,” which expands on his Twitter feed at @johnmaeda

By John Maeda

Special to The Seattle Times

I tell people that I am a native of Seattle, but that I only knew it before it became cool. The creative economy hadn’t really happened yet — Boeing was the booming Microsoft equivalent back then; there was nascent grunge music and no coffee culture to speak of.

But amid the rain, and the fog, and the rain, and the rain, Seattle was home to the beginning of my journey traversing the fields of technology, art and design.
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My View: Don’t narrow the focus of our schools

By Gene Carter, Special to CNN

Licensed through the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Editor’s note:  Gene Carter is CEO and executive director of ASCD, an international education leadership association with 150,000 members—superintendents, principals, teachers, professors, and advocates — in more than 145 countries.  A veteran educator with experience as a teacher, administrator, superintendent and university professor, Carter took over the helm of ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) in 1992.

Every parent knows how important it is for a child to experience classes beyond math and reading. Many parents I talk to tell me that their child’s favorite subject is art, history or physical education.

One parent recently described to me how her daughter’s physical education teacher was able to tie science and physics to each lesson. Another parent praised the school gardening program and how much her son was learning about health and math by plotting out garden planters that grew many varieties of vegetables. Read more →

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/what_real_education_reform_looks_like_20111208/

Posted on Dec 8, 2011 (Reprinted in entirety)

By David Sirota

As 2011 draws to a close, we can confidently declare that one of the biggest debates over education is—mercifully—resolved. We may not have addressed all of the huge challenges facing our schools, but we finally have empirical data ruling out apocryphal theories and exposing the fundamental problems.

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Reprint of NYT Article February 2, 2010 Creative Commons license 2011
Op-Ed Contributor
By SUSAN ENGEL
New Marlborough, Mass.

THE Obama administration is planning some big changes to how we measure the success or failure of schools and how we apportion federal money based on those assessments. It’s great that the administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.
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