Freedom to Learn, Part 1—Hale to the Program
For the past several years, something quite extraordinary has been happening in Michigan’s middle schools: Almost 21,000 students have participated in the state’s Freedom to Learn (FTL) program, in which each student has access to educational technology such as Hewlett-Packard laptops and software such as Encarta Encyclopedia and Discourse. And 1,193 teachers in 188 buildings across 95 school districts have facilitated this program by doing something many teachers find extremely difficult: They’ve given up some control to their students.
