TEDx in Madison!

I have the pleasure of working with a great group of individuals on bringing TED to Madison. It's a very eclectic group taking a cross-disciplinary approach to the central idea behind the event. This picture was written by Deb Gurke and is the visual of the concept. In the top left corner, we see the transforming political economy, where catalysts such as immigration, poverty, technology, and the knowledge explosion (or access to knowledge expansion) are all drivers of change. In the upper right is the concept of transforming ideologies, where markets and accountability are in influx. While both the political economy and the ideologies of our time are transforming, they are also pushing what schooling is and what is need from schooling (a term meant to capture the formal public school experience). The collective impact of both of these forces will, in turn, compel schooling to transform too, which we can all agree is lagging behind in how it serves the public.
What we hope to accomplish is to assemble representatives and innovators from the political economy and from the changing ideologies in order to have a collective impact in assisting the transformation of schooling. As most TED events already transmit, the event should be gathering of "cross pollination" for the purpose of understanding, hopefully generating the will and purpose for change in how we effectively educate children on a mass scale.