Guest Commentary: Georgia Public Policy Foundation: U.S. Education has a Choice--Innovate or Become Irrlevant

Imagine that two little boys were playing ball in the field when the one with freckles said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be just like my Dad! He works in the factory putting zippers into blue jeans."
The other little boy, without any freckles, smiled as only little boys can smile and said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be just like my Dad! I don't know what he does but he wears a suit. I'm going to wear a suit, too!"
Odds are very long that neither little boy would grow up to be just like Dad. Zipper jobs at the blue jeans factory left the country, and whatever job the other little boy's dad had was probably reinvented and might also be extinct.
The message here is both little boys must be educated for a work world that will continue to evolve, not the one that allowed their Dads to earn steady incomes.
There is widespread recognition this will require new approaches. Learning without borders is the idea public education must embrace technology and new ways to make material available to students.
That is the message former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise brought to a recent conference hosted in Atlanta by the Public Policy Foundation and the Conservative Leadership Policy Institute. Wise and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush launched the Digital Learning Council this year to focus on new strategies for digital change in education. How to integrate learning without borders into traditional settings that might resist new ideas is the challenge being addressed by the Digital Learning Council and like-minded groups.
Click here to read more of Georgia Public Policy Foundation editor Mike Klein's take on the virtual education movement and why he believes U.S. education must innovate or become irrelevant.