Can You Hack Providence Public Schools ?

I dance with Providence Public Schools a lot. As a parent of a first grader in a mainstream elementary school. As an internship mentor to a freshman at the MET alternative high school. As a volunteer participant ranging across PTA meetings, the facilities master plan, and the East Side Public Education Coalition. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how a hackable education environment would look and feel, and whether its possible from the public school system we have today.

If something in our city and society were to be hackable, to be own-able and edit-able and open to the wisdom and the contribution of the larger community, the education of our youth would be an obvious first choice. But schools carry with them 100 years of tradition, and that tradition doesn't include parents as co-experts and contributors.

So lets start a dialogue, about how students, parents and the community can be invited to "plug in" to the school system, to the life of the classroom, the customization of the curriculum, and the support of the kids.

What should a hackable education look like? How would the "architecture of participation" work? Who should hack - students, parents, community members, teachers?

Are there good examples of education hackability out there in the public or private realm, at a school or even a classroom level ? Can those examples take root in other places? Can they scale ?

How do we get past the can't/won't/shouldn't sclerosis that grips the system ? How do we prove or be accountable to standards as the federal government demands (or do we)? How do we make a hackable education work for as many families as possible ?

I have more questions than answers - this is a problem for the wisdom of the crowd !