New York's Department of Education has launched an ambitious effort to use technology to essentially reinvent the schools. The program, now known as the Innovation Zone or iZone, began two years with 10 schools and is expected to reach 300 within the next few years. These schools will feature a widely expanded use of digital teaching -- becoming at least in part so-called "virtual schools." What happens in the iZone will almost certainly affect the use of technology in schools throughout the country.
It's a high-stakes gamble featuring the country's largest public school system. But does the city Department of Education have the money, the research and the commitment to make such an ambitious undertaking work? Journalist and professor Andrea Gabor looks at what the program seeks to do and why, and the progress so far, as well as the promise and pitfalls of such an ambitious effort. The full article, written for the Gotham Gazette, a nonpartisan publication on New York policy and politics, can be read on the paper's website: http://www.gothamgazette.com
