Guest Commentary: Digital Technologies Must Change Failed Public Education Model

Nick Trombetta is the founder and chief executive of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, the state's largest virtual charter school. James Barker is the former Erie, Pa., schools superintendent who is now the executive director of the Pennsylvania Digital Learning Network, an organization that offers Pennsylvania school districts educational programs and services delivered online or digitally. Together, they wrote an essay, "Digital Technologies Must Change Failed Public Education Model" that calls on educators to "embrace the digital age." "Only a break with the past and an embrace of the present will give us the public education system we all need and want -- and our children deserve," they write. "To take full advantage of this opportunity, everyone with a vested interest in public education (and really, isn't that all of us?) must set aside self-interest, honestly and comprehensively appraise current conditions, and work collaboratively to foster -- and hasten -- the development of that emerging model," they added. "Technology, while no panacea, is creating an environment in which this level of cooperation is not only possible, but unavoidable." Click here to read the entire article.