Policy Exchange - who funds them?Think tanks are a body of experts providing advice and ideas on specific political or economic problems. Of course, we live in times where according to Michael Gove, the inaugural chairman of the UK think tank, Policy Exchange, “people have had enough of experts”. Read More
The EduMedia / Industrial Complex
To be honest, I had no idea that my reporting of the Transparify Think Tank Transparency 2016 report was going to cause so much ire amongst the UK edumedia. My thought was, “surely, given the influence of PX on education & govt policy, this is a story so why don’t you cover it?”Read More
Think of a Tank - George MonbiotThe “free market thinktanks” and their secret funders are a threat to democracy. We know that to understand politics and the peddling of influence we must follow the money. So it’s remarkable that the question of who funds the thinktanks has so seldom been asked. Read More
Think Tanks not Lobbying Tanks
Negative perceptions of think tanks often rise from conflicting visions of the role and purpose of these types of organizations. Think tanks sometimes pursue opposite policy goals, that is to say, what one regards as an accomplishment, the other regards as a destructive result.Read More
Foreign Powers buy Influence
More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities. Read More
Think Tanks Represent a Blind Spot
The public commentary provided by non-independent think tanks has become increasingly problematic, with print and broadcast media often re-presenting their views devoid of any recognition of strong partisan ties. Read More
Schools: privatisation’s final frontier
'The dramatic expansion of the academies programme’ represents a ‘dramatic shift of power from the old educational establishment’. So said UK education secretary, Nicky Morgan. The next stage of the government’s reforms has educational technology ‘at its heart’. Read More
Trads Will Eat Themselves
In the western world for the past 200 years, give or take, we have lived with education systems and schools dominated by the belief that mastery of subject knowledge is schools grand purpose.
What does AI mean for education?Machines don’t unionise, don’t get sick, don’t suffer from stress, don’t need a salary and are 100% consistent in delivering a curriculum and testing assimilation. What’s not to like?
Are for-profit, private public partnerships the way forward for distributing education in the developing world or are we witnessing the emergence of a digitally enabled colonialism?
The Future of LearningWhat is the purpose of school and the role of EdTech? In schooling systems that are subject and test driven are teachers redundant or something more. What is it that we value?
