More Notes on Re-Thinking K-12

Amanda Paulson:

What if the solution to American students' stagnant performance levels and the wide achievement gap between white and minority students wasn't more money, smaller schools, or any of the reforms proposed in recent years, but rather a new education system altogether?

That's the conclusion of a bipartisan group of scholars and business leaders, school chancellors and education commissioners, and former cabinet secretaries and governors. They declare that America's public education system, designed to meet the needs of 100 years ago when the workplace revolved around an assembly line, is unsuited to today's global marketplace. Already, they warn, many Americans are in danger of falling behind and seeing their standard of living plummet.

Rotherham adds:

I think we need to think more daringly, yes, but I don't think we tried everything or nearly hard enough to improve American schools within the current context. But I think that is sort of irrelevant today because the context has changed so much and consequently more of the same amounts to trying to make the current system work to do things we don't want it to do anymore anyway.

Locally, dealing with the recently disclosed 7 year structural deficit in the Madison School District's $332M+ budget will require strong leadership, open minds and the ideas contained in Peter Gascoyne's words.

V. Dion Haynes has more.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 15, 2006 12:09 PM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas