Many of us are familiar with Sir Ken Robinson’s TEDtalks on education. An interesting article I ran into this weekend in Forbes by Rob Berger reinforces the idea that market forces need to come to bear down on education policy makers to adapt America’s public education system to the contemporary needs of today.

Schools are important to what Berger describes a “social clouds,” a modern take on Hobbes social contract theory, that societies and civilizations have obligations to themselves for continuity. I also agree that schools need to adapt to a student-centered learning in environment where students have a direct choices and voices in their learning, where it is instilled that citizens take more ownership in their learning, and finally where authentic learning takes place.

I do believe that there is knowledge worth knowing for knowledge’s sake – history, law, art, grammar and spelling for examples. But I also believe that students should be in a setting that provides opportunity for guided discovery.

I’m not for dismantling public school systems – equal access to education is a foundation of American democracy and should be supported as a measure of national security just like military defense or energy independence. The very challenges and problems debated with great fervor by politicians and everyone’s friends on Facebook are best addressed through the education system – especially issues of social and economic inequality.