The school choice battle is about choosing between schools, or among schools. The anger-filled video from Reason TV embedded above demonstrates the stress this choice enflames. There is another choice unfolding that is to go to the commons of what is known by humankind online as a source for learning.
The new choice does not settle the arguments about schools. Instead it offers every student another — additional — choice for finding knowledge to learn. By combining two surprise serendipities we can open literacy and learning for the young global generation:
1. Handschooling: Getting an individual mobile device with wireless broadband browsing to every youngster, so that each of them can connect to:
2. The golden swamp: where what is known by humankind has nestled into the open online network forming a self-vetting ecosystem that allows everyone to learn from the same virtual page.
There are many complexities to creating 21st century education, but there is a new, simple, increasingly doable step: connecting each student to what is known online. Doing that for a student does not make a choice, it provides equality.
