Education Reform? Where is it?

Presidential Obama's educational reform ideas are are going to change much. They are similar to the George W. Bush reforms that forwarded ideas about giving people choice, but really didn't worry about the nuts and bolts of giving them an education. That would involve knowing what is going in education and knowing the root of problems in education.

What Obama and Bush are playing is a shell game. They shift responsibility for improving education to everything but the government (and themselves). If you open up these great new Charter schools, you've given people choice. It doesn't mean that you've offered them a better education, but choice has been put into the mix. Charter schools have not out-performed the normal public schools. Let's explain the free market system to Bush and Obama: you have to offer a better product! That's the problem.

So, read my book (Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change) and it discusses that you actually have to improve the quality of the lesson in the classroom (the product) for schools and the education system to improve. Currently, our high-tech superpower of a nation ranks fairly low in the K-12 education world. It's hard to imagine that we can maintain our standard of living without maintaining our technical superiority. It isn't going to happen if we don't find better ways to deliver the goods.

No medals for teachers

As summer ends and fall peaks around the corner, the President of the United States was giving out the Presidential Medal of Freedom awards. The Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award that Americans can receive. Sixteen people earned the award. Notables who received the award included actor, Sidney Poitier, Senator Ted Kennedy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and 13 other fortunate people. It was a little disappointing to see that President Obama couldn't find an educator in the mix. Luckily, Stephen Hawking, the physicist received an award so academia was well represented, but it would have been nice to see a rank and file teacher get the award. Bring in Jaime Escalante or Raef Esquith and pin a medal on them....

Oh well, people don't necessarily teach for either monetary awards, but it would have been a nice gesture. Ronald Reagan, Mother Teresa, and Margaret Thatcher were all recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. One may note that getting one of these medals is based on the choice of the President. What do Obama's choices say about him. He picked Chita Rivera, the Broadway actress... he likes talent. He gave a medal to Billie Jean King, the female tennis player who was a champion on the court and for women's rights. She was both talented and a great spokeswoman for equal rights. Ask Bobby Riggs. Many of the recipients were politicians. Gay activist, Harvey Milk; Ted Kennedy, and Jack Kemp all received the award. Nancy Brinker, a woman who championed the fight against breast cancer was a worthy recipient whose efforts had been inspired by a promise she'd made to her dying sister to help fight a deadly disease. Another scientist who received the award was Janet Rowley, a scientist who discovered a role of chromosome tranlocations in hjuman cancer. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner was given a medal. What Obama tried to do was create a good mix; science, religion, anti-poverty, women's rights, gay rights, and human rights.

It was a nice award, but it would have been nice for someone for someone who busted their tail in a classroom for years to be recognized. Yet, most teachers don't teach to be recognized, they teach so that someone else will be. Hopefully, the people who received their awards remember to thank people that helped them achieve success in life; parents; teachers; and publicity agents.

Maybe next time a teacher will get something other than an apple.

Thank you Bill Gates

Back in 2005, Bill Gates III gave a speech to American governors and he told them that the education system in cannot work. For Gates, it was a prelude to tackling the problem of American education through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For me, it was a challenge to find why public (actually most) education is the way it is. The result will be published in October 2009 and is called: Improving the Odds: A basis for long-term change (Rowman and Littlefield). The book shows that until structural elements in education are changed, American education will continue to fail.

Bush and No Child Left Behind will fail. Obama's education plan that is headed by Department of Education secretary, Arne Duncan, will fail. He said he looked to four agendas to improve education: better information to track students; higher standards and better assessment; turning around troubled schools; and improving the quality of the workforce.

That all sounds good, but he sort of missed improving the quality of the lessons that students receive.... That's where the learning takes place.