You raise some interesting points about different types of schools. I was actually having a discussion with one reader, Ron Adams, about some of these and my answer is I don't really know enough about all of the types of schools you mentioned to give a completely educated answer, but I do have a few conclusions:

1. Technology, though I didn't mention it, is hugely important and will be as we progress into a new era of education. That would certainly be a big part of the budget.

2. In-person education will remain important for the foreseeable future. We just haven't invented a way for people to have truly face-to-face interactions and participate in hands-on activities without being on-site.

3. I've always been interested in a school that allows for student choice in designing the curriculum, but I think that only a certain amount of leniency can be given. Independent study opportunities and a diverse choice of courses is certainly important, but I think there still must be an imposed structure.

4. With regards to learning style, I don't believe that the ideal school would try to cater to every learning style. This would be a school for people who are good with the lecture/drawing on board/interactive technology type learning, not necessarily people who need to do actually manipulate things and be extremely hands-on in every subject. This is the same with special needs kids and kids at a lower academic level – it's not that the school would discriminate, but the school simply would not have the resources to take care of special cases because their resources would be focused elsewhere. My idea is essentially an honors school, instead of an honors class.

Thanks for the comment,

CF

I am going to attempt to disrupt your thinking about schools and be a devil's advocate, or rather, a student's advocate. By the time you are a successful venture capitalist, schools may have changed. Or perhaps, given how slow schools are to change, they will not have altered very much but you will be in a position to act as a catalyst. So here are some thing to consider…

- What about online schools?
- What about project based schools? (A few using this model already exist.)
- What about schools that offer more student choice in the design of the learning process?
- What about a school that focuses on teaching students about how they learn?
- What about a school that truly facilitates learning for multiple learning styles?
- What about a school with a more global outreach?

How would you design a school for the students of the 21st century?

Just some ideas to think about
Cheers,
Mrs B/aka Laurie