"Paul Dourish of the University of California, Irvine discusses how does the design of physical spaces, virtual experiences, and legal codes form the experience of the public and the private. Jonathan Zittrain of the Berkman Center moderates.

The Hyperpublic symposium brings together computer scientists, ethnographers, architects, historians, artists and legal scholars to discuss how design influences privacy and public space, how it shapes and is shaped by human behavior and experience, and how it can cultivate norms such as tolerance and diversity."

"One of the most exciting movements I’ve seen recently in the social enterprise world is the development of Affordable Private Schools. Approximately 100 million children in the developing world are attending ultra low-cost private schools (generally less than $10/month in school fees). Their parents (typically low or working class, living at the base of the pyramid) choose to invest their limited income in their children's education and realize that the affordable private schools tend to offer a far superior education to the local public schools."

Diane Ratvich: "I would like to see public education improve, and I would like to see Catholic and other religious schools survive. So I have a simple principle to propose: Public money for public schools, private money for private schools. That way, entrepreneurs would stop picking the public's pocket for their enrichment, and philanthropists would be encouraged to support effective and worthy religious schools, especially those (like Catholic schools) that have helped poor and working-class families and children. The survival of inner-city Catholic education now hangs in the balance, and only private money can save it. And should."

"The emerging infrastructure is different. Varnelis describes it as something multiple and shifting: “networked ecologies,” plural “infrastructures” that are “hypercomplex” and as likely to consist of legal mechanisms and barely visible cell-phone networks as the heavy stuff of tunnels and bridges. Inherently less apparent than the infrastructure that came before, they’re also as likely to be owned by corporations as by governments—meaning these networks can’t really be controlled, only “appropriated” according to their own logic. With traditional planning made impotent by capitalism and NIMBYism, rebuilding the city now requires a “new type of urbanist,” a designer Varnelis compares to a computer hacker who reimagines a new use for the underlying rules and codes. It’s a compelling vision, but it’s darkened by a Marxist conviction about the malevolence of the corporation. Infrastructure has always been a public initiative that complements private investment."

"Even if all kids attended schools of identical quality, we would still see inequality in educational outcomes by socioeconomic status because of the 87% conundrum. Home learning environments, it turns out, are much more unequal than school environments. Below, this figure in a terrific paper by Doug Downey and colleagues makes this very clear. To be sure, schools offer unequal learning opportunities, but there is even more inequality in learning opportunities between families."

"This debilitating pattern of the "doom loop" is felt acutely in urban schools. School districts replace superintendents with alarming frequency, hailing each as the savior leader. Curricula lurch from progressive to traditional and back again, and each year a new professional development guru rolls out the program du jour. Initiatives and teams are developed without enough planning and training, and no program or leader is given enough time to produce great results. By the time any traction is made, a new program, fad, or leader is in place. Nobody is truly accountable, and no momentum toward excellent results is built up. Teachers are frustrated, and students fail to learn."

"I can't really cite economics here but if your public school is halfway decent that is the side I come down on. Readers?" and they weigh in...

"The Nueva School creates a dynamic educational model to enable gifted children to learn how to make choices that will benefit the world. Our school community inspires passion for lifelong learning, fosters social and emotional acuity, and develops the ch

"shrinking pool of younger students, a souring economy and rising tuition...population of children ages 5 to 9 is declining...Tuition may have reached the "breaking point...Schools are going to have to think out of the box from now on"

"Thus, this paper shows two things. First, that the test scores of the students in the public schools improved when vouchers gave the schools better incentives to perform. Second, at least some of the improvement comes from changes in how students are tau

"great achievement here has less to do with aesthetic experimentation than with creating a bold antidote to the depressing model of ersatz small-town America embraced by so many suburban developers in recent years."

"Mayne says people believe that L.A.’s residents are comfortable living in “fake old new world,” rather than “exploring what it means to be alive in the 21st century.” Ma & Mayne also debate public versus private space, difference between city

"A new book suggests none of the 'radical' education initiatives of the past 20 years have made any difference to the social segregation of schools."

"Alan Bennett, a former grammar school boy himself, has launched a scathing attack on segregation in the British education system, calling for public schools to be abolished and saying it was "wrong" that good schooling could be bought by the wealthy."

"new national survey of U.S. adults conducted under the auspices of Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University"

"Nearly 40,000 more children are now being educated privately than when Tony Blair came to power, new figures reveal today."

"Since 1995, private school attendance has increased 61 percent among elementary school pupils."