Though I believe that Gov. Strickland has good intentions, and, I believe he actually hoped for much more, it appears that his education plan for Ohio will not transform the system, but instead, will add more layers of bureaucracy, requirements, and expense to the present system. Strickland’s efforts in education should reminds us, again, that the forces of inertia are so embedded in the political power structure that top-down efforts to change the system inevitably are frustrated. There is a “this too will pass” passive resistance attitude within the educational establishment that remains — though governors come and go, as do reform minded school superintendents, and reform plans.

My own conclusion is that the energy needed for authentic reform — leading to a transformed system — must be the result of grassroots community efforts.

Oldprof, your statement, that,“The only thing a school can do to promote education is to get a competent teacher in front of a reasonable-sized class and provide proper supplies,” raises good questions. It implies that education is defined as that which happens in a classroom and that a teacher is one who can control the class successfully and deliver a curriculum. This is a 1955 definition of schooling, but, was this model ever really good enough? But, here in 2010 it seems very out of date. This model of schooling seems a long way from satisfying Dewey’s standard — that every child in a community should benefit from an education that the wisest parent in a community would want for their own child.

Your comment seems to point out that, certainly, every wise parent wants their children to benefit from the influence and effort of great teachers. But, here is the system design question: If we believe that great teachers are the key to education, then what is the system that would allow great teachers to emerge and to flourish? In 1955, many of those great teachers were women who went into education because there were no other professional opportunities and in 1955, there was a more nonchalant attitude to the administration of teachers and, in 1955, teachers had more professional discretion in the classroom and more opportunity for creativity than what now exists in our current test driven schools. But, in 1955 teachers were much more poorly paid than today, and teachers’ associations were professional societies, not unions. There was no collective bargaining, etc. We’re never going back to those structures. We need to have the insight to use the reality we find in 2010 to design new systems of education. The good news is that we have much greater promise of making a system that will develop human potential beyond what would have been possible in 1955.

Stan, yes, Deming’s life work was in industry — such as Ford — and in Japan there is now the Deming Prize for quality. But he was very interested in education, particularly in his later years. His daughter, I believe, was a public school teacher. His basic insights concerning systems, he indicated, applied to all systems, including systems of education.

Everyone shuts up.

Well, not everyone. But let’s limit the opinion pieces from people who know nothing about education and who want to impose their favorite paradigm.

Hess has nothing new to say. Let’s operate education like business! Let’s make it for-profit! Just like BP, Lehman Brothers, Enron, Andersen, Worldcom.

Hess must know nothing about business, because if he did he’d start by recognizing this fact: over 50% of businesses fail within the first five years of operation, and it’s a safe bet that 80% of today’s top ten companies on the Fortune list will have fallen far lower in 30 years.

Business in a free market is not stable.

Is instability good for education? No. And privatizing education will in fact destabilize it. Look at the students whose parents (we foolishly invested them with the notion that they knew how to best educate their children–despite the widespread neglect and abuse of children) put them in charter schools which then closed–having neglected to educate those children–sometimes in mid-term.

The fact is that the top American universities from 100 years ago are STILL ranked as the top American universities. No business has ever maintained such a level of quality.

Here’s the bottom line, the unescapable but inconvenient truth. The only thing a school can do to promote education is to get a competent teacher in front of a reasonable-sized class and provide proper supplies. All of the alphabet soup of “reforms” amount to a scam to sell books by education “experts” who, frankly, should not be authorized to educate a dog.

If you want to fix American education, roll back to 1955 when we were approaching 100% literacy. Fund the schools generously and then leave them alone–except perhaps to ride herd on the administration to prevent it from overpopulating. And tell Arne Duncan and Hess and John Husted to shut the hell up. The alternative is to keep listening to the same amateurs and allowing the same reforms while expecting different results.

So how would you grade the NEA/OEA Transformational Dialogue on Public Education? Did they (with First Lady Frances Strickland) “get the jobs done?”

The idea is that any plan for the transformation needed in public education will take years to implement and many more years to bring to fruition. It will require a grassroots movement inspired by a shared vision. This is a tall order, but I believe Kettering is a community in which there is a reasonable chance for success.

You ask, “How much impact can a better system have when students go home to a family that doesn’t believe education is important?” And, the answer, I believe, is a transformed system can have a transforming impact. I’m basing my belief on W. Edwards Deming’s assertion that system organizational structure accounts for 85% of quality. There is a lot of discouragement concerning whether public education can ever be substantially improved. But, when we implement changes in such things as teacher quality or curriculum or length of school day, etc., we are only impacting, only 15% of quality issues and our best efforts, at best, result in only marginal improvement. We’ve not touched the 85% where there is the opportunity for the biggest impact. A plan for transformation must focus on this 85%.

Transformation requires the hard work of rethinking the entire system. Transformation will require challenging the comfort level of most everyone who is comfortable with the current system. Big change will require grassroots support, a compelling plan, and patience. It will never happen within the current dynamic. We need a new dynamic — one based on democratic processes and one based on unlocking the creative potential of authentic local control.

I’m setting the timing for 13 years in the future — the length of one K-12 cycle — maybe, it will be shorter or, more likely, longer. Small victories will bring about more rapid change, and if transformation has any chance we will need to see positive change in the short run of only 2 or 3 years. We need time for the current system to substantially wither away and for new system to replace it. Such change will require a long view and a stable community. We need to stop the practice of the last 50 years of simply continually replicating the current failed system.

What can be done to create and foster a community parenting culture that places a strong value on education?