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Among K-12 educators who live in what we consider to be the "progressive" realm, the question occasionally arises, So, what and where are the progressive schools?

Great question, because among other things there isn't anywhere a very good or generally accepted definition of what it means to be "progressive" in this day and age. We have to leave it to the schools themselves to use the "progressive" description, and a few of the more serious of us would still want to question that definition.

A while back //[|Education Week On-Line]// published a Commentary article called "[|The New Progressivism is Here]." The author put forth the idea that there is a large and growing body of practice, based on new ideas about curriculum and assessment and new understandings of cognition and adolescent development, that has taken some of the experiential and student-centered ideas of John Dewey and other originators of the 20th century Progressive Education movement, and transformed these into a high-standards, intentional, and engaging set of educational practices that relate extremely well to the kinds of 21st century skills, understandings, and habits of mind for which educators and the general public seem to be clamoring. (Even if they don't quite know exactly what they are clamoring for, it certainly seems as though the most rigorously purposeful New Progressive practices resolve the inchoate longing into a set of definable, practical approaches to teaching and learning.)

Enough of that. The purpose of this wiki is to provide a place where educators interested in progressive education, the New Progressivism, and the nature of education in general can share and expand their knowledge and understanding.

Along the way, we'd like to develop that missing "list" of progressive schools, historical and contemporary, and put together a list of resources and ideas related to progressive education in all of its manifestations.