They’re too confining, he says. They trap kids in chairs, in classrooms, in the narrow bounds of an established curriculum. So White and a handful of fellow revolutionaries have begun pushing a new vision for American public education. Call it the a la carte school. The model, now in practice or under consideration in states including Louisiana, Michigan, Arizona and Utah, allows students to build a custom curriculum by selecting from hundreds of classes offered by public institutions and private vendors. A teenager in Louisiana, for instance, might study algebra online with a private tutor, business in a local entrepreneur’s...

While Vietnamese teachers are complaining about their low pay, an old woman continues teaching for free in the Mekong Delta. 68-year-old Nguyen Thi Do, a.k.a. Ms. Ba Do, has been offering free education for almost 30 years in Hau Giang Province, where generations of poor students have studied with the woman in her small riverside café that doubles as a classroom. Continue reading Tuoitrenews

Distinguished members of the Swedish Academy, Ladies and Gentlemen: Through the mediums of television and the Internet, I imagine that everyone here has at least a nodding acquaintance with far-off Northeast Gaomi Township. You may have seen my ninety-year-old father, as well as my brothers, my sister, my wife and my daughter, even my granddaughter, now a year and four months old. But the person who is most on my mind at this moment, my mother, is someone you will never see. Many people have shared in the honor of winning this prize, everyone but her. My mother was born...

Colorado College’s 125th Anniversary SymposiumCultures in the 21st Century: Conflicts and Convergences “One material civilization, multiple spiritual cultures” (I prefer the German distinction of civilization and culture) is a favorite topic of mine. The first part of the topic means that modernization is irresistible in the world. People almost everywhere (there may be a few exceptions) prefer electric lamps to oil lamps, air conditioners to hand fans, cars to horses for transportation, houses to tents for living. Modernization has made great improvements in diet, clothing, housing, travel, and longevity, no matter the culture, religion, morality, or “nationality” of a people....

President Obama’s first term was absorbed by dealing with the Great Recession. I hope that in his second term he’ll be able to devote more attention to the Great Inflection. Dealing with the Great Recession was largely about “Yes We Can” — about government, about what we can and must do “together” to shore up the safety nets and institutions that undergird our society and economy. Obama’s Inaugural Address was a full-throated defense of that “public” side of the unique public-private partnership that makes America great. But, if we’re to sustain the kind of public institutions and safety nets that...

With the easing of international sanctions, UK universities are re-engaging with Burma at a time when the country’s higher education sector finds itself caught between two reviews. It’s lunchtime, but in the offices of the National League for Democracy (NLD), no one is stopping work. As we go up a tight staircase into an office hung with portraits of leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her father General Aung San, activists work energetically around tables strewn with documents and maps. Student volunteers flick between drafting policy papers on antiquated PCs and checking Facebook on their iPhones. The NLD, Burma’s main...