Today, the U.S. House of Representatives took a giant step forward in comprehensive student aid reform. The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, introduced by Education Committee Chairman George Miller, invests billions of dollars in financial aid at no new expense to taxpayers. The United States Student Association, along with college students nationwide, is ecstatic about Congressman Miller’s unsurpassed commitment to higher education.

Students Thrilled with Student Aid Reform Bill, Education is a Right, July 15, 2009

The Obama or Democratic party agenda seems fascinatingly split into two. On the one hand are the programs deemed “controversial” by some weird mixture of media interest and conservative hysteria. First it was the stimulus money and now it’s health care reform. These are certainly important efforts. But underneath or beside these efforts are an entire range of other initiatives that might add up to something just as important, if not more important. These initiatives (almost) slip under the radar.

They are noticed but then fade out of the media. Among these I would include the dropping of the F22, the so-called cash for clunker program, and now the ongoing attempts to de-privatize the student loan industry, which would make millions of dollars of new money available for Pell Grants while lowering the costs of education loans. These programs are going to start bearing fruit in the next few years and I think the effects are going to be dramatic. Taken together, they might be just as transformative as the ‘priority’ reforms.

It is a bittersweet privilege to provide the introduction to this issue of Currents, which is a tribute to John Slatin. Although we are still struggling with his loss, the remarkable work of his former students gathered here is a testament to his living legacy. It is a tribute that would have meant the most to him. He was a consummate teacher, who delighted in the successes of his students, and I know he would have been so deeply touched to know that they remember him with such gratitude. I will not repeat here what I have said in other places about John’s contributions to our field, and his innovations in computers and writing. I will say that our conversations and his example always supported and inspired me in my teaching. The outpouring of responses from his students when we offered the invitation to contribute to this issue was another reminder of the love and affection expressed by so many people throughout John’s illness and passing. The range of these pieces gives some sense of the scope and diversity of John’s scholarly and pedagogical interests and influence. In keeping with John’s love of experimentation, creativity, imagination, and exploration, the projects here are rich and diverse.

… John’s playfulness and spirit of adventure are at the heart of the MOO/webtext of Albert Rouzie and Ray Watkins: “A Sustainable Culture: John Slatin’s Ludic Pedagogy.” Their conversation ranged across diverse topics in just the way that Slatin celebrated, including Hypertext, MOOs, Interchange, authority, play, persuasion, New Media, cultural capital, progressive education, blogs, digital technology, slow reading, Open Source, cloud computing, and Twitter…

John Slatin’s Legacy, Peg Syverson

This has been out for a few weeks and I should have posted it here earlier… Anyway, now’s a good time because I’ve been traveling all week and I don’t have much time…