How innovative are English schools? This is, it turns out, a tough question to answer. One might expect that those at the forefront of developing new thinking about how we educate might be uniformly upbeat (almost as a professional requirement) about future prospects. But that isn't always the case. Some brim over with enthusiasm about the opportunities afforded by new technology; others see English schools as generally risk-averse organizations operating in an environment that's often inhospitable to new thinking. Paul Kelley is head teacher at Monkseaton High School in Whitley Bay in northeast England and has been featured in national newspapers for the groundbreaking work at his school. (At the time of writing, CNN was about to feature Monkseaton because of its policy of starting school an hour later than normal based on evidence that teenagers learn better in the afternoon.) Last year, Monkseaton captured headlines after an experiment, which the school said was based on research on how the brain works, in which students took an important biology exam after only an hour's lesson in the subject, broken up by 10-minute breaks in which students could play basketball to relax. A quarter scored higher than they did in another biology test that was taken after four months' teaching. In spite of the innovation at Monkseaton, however, Kelley was downbeat about the prospects for new thinking taking hold in schools more widely. "Education is risk-averse. Schools [in England] are controlled by governing bodies, or trusts, or churches, so they generally have limited freedom, and there are few mechanisms for sharing good practice. Similarly, in the U.S., school boards have ever such tight control over what happens, and even charter schools are not necessarily geared to help each other make improvements," he said. "In reality, I think it's difficult to see where the innovation is going to come from. There's no direction for it, there's no funding for it, there's no easy way of sharing it," Kelley said. Valerie Hannon, a director of The Innovation Unit, a nonprofit that was spun off from a government agency originally charged with encouraging new thinking in schools, also believes the United Kingdom lacks serious government investment in school innovation, of the sort now being promoted by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan through the $650 million i3 (Investing in Innovation) Fund. "Governments [in the UK] ... are very reluctant to take the lead on innovation, particularly because of the level of risk it is perceived to entail. They are small c conservative about it," Hannon said. "So, it is left to those at the fringes, rather than at the political centre, to undertake this work. And some schools are doing terrific work. But the issue is: how to make it large scale." Moving beyond standards Hannon believes educators need to think beyond the "standards" or "school improvement" agenda that has animated politicians and school leaders from the previous (Labour) government's election in 1997 onward. The standards movement has seen a huge concentration on improving test scores and exam grades in both elementary and high schools. However, after sharp improvements in national test scores in English, math, and science in the mid-1990s, the gains slowed dramatically from the year 2000. The figures now show around one in five 11-year-olds, for example, fail to reach government expectations in each of the tests. While the standards agenda had made a "huge contribution," Hannon said, the figures suggest new approaches may be needed. "People have to rethink on a deeper level why it is that many students are not really engaging in a deeper sense with learning," Hannon said. …