As educators ponder what the future may hold for public education, we need to remember that changes in schools are often responses to changing social, political, and economic conditions--and that these conditions in turn result from technological developments. With more social diversity (related to technological changes in production and other aspects of life), education will also be more diversified. No one knows how future schools will be governed or paid for, but we can expect greater variety than at present. Farsighted educators are anticipating this trend and leading it.
Aside from the public policy aspects of education, we can detect trends almost certain to change education. They are greater use of information technology to locate and transform information and increased understanding among educators of the human brain and internal cognitive processing. These will not be restricted to public education, but will influence learning wherever it takes place.
