Defending Edutopia.

Dede, Chris

I am dismayed that Education Next would publish Robert Pondiscio's article on the George Lucas Education Foundation (GLEF) and its Edutopia initiatives ("Edutopian Vision," features, Summer 2010). I have served for years as a member of GLEF's National Advisory Board (as a labor of love; advisory board members are unpaid) because I believe in the value of this enterprise.

Pondiscio charges that the Edutopia principles are ungrounded in research. For example, he attacks the principle of comprehensive assessment, citing a 1995 RAND report on a single statewide program. He should instead examine the extensive 2006 National Research Council report on "Systems for State Science Assessment" or the excellent assessment section in the draft "National Educational Technology Plan 2010," from the U.S. Department of Education, which describes multiple ways of making alternative assessments practical. Similarly, instead of quoting a single cognitive scientist about the deficiencies of project-based learning, Pondiscio should examine the National Research Council's 2005 volume on "How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom" or the excellent research synthesis on project-based learning in the 2006 Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences. The deficits in having research evidence to support one's position are Pondiscio's problem, not Edutopia's.

CHRIS DEDE

Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies

Harvard Graduate School of Education