Here is the interesting question: Suppose my local community came to be united in a common vision of the purpose / aim of public education — the aim I suggested here,
Our only hope is that the coming generations are more mature, more thoughtful, more aware, more politically active, more compassionate than the generation now in charge. Our hope is that coming generations will be full of thoughtful citizens and visionary leaders. Such should be the aim of our educational system.
a community, so united, would ask questions like these:
- What criteria could we use to judge whether or to what degree our system of public education is accomplishing such an aim?
- In a system with such an aim, how should teacher professionalism be defined and what is the design of a system where such teacher professionalism will flourish?
A school system that seriously pursued accomplishing a more holistic aim would stop spending resources on raising test scores and as a result may slip in the state ratings. Local control would mean that a local community would have the guts to reject the state’s criteria, and, instead, agree as a community to evaluate the local system of public education using the community’s own standards.
Our only hope for a happy future is via an energized democracy. I’d like to imagine that Kettering’s current system of public education by 2030 is transformed into an innovative system, one with stunning results and national recognition. The Kettering superintendent in 2030, I imagine, might say: “It all started in 2011 when somehow Kettering began to activate local control ….”
local community would have the guts to reject the state’s criteria
“Trust us, your kid is learning fine” hasn’t worked out so well. Education Secretary Duncan call it “lying to parents and children.” One purpose of tests is to ensure all students have access to talented teachers–as shown by learning gains.
Improved test scores are required by some legal settlements, including Dayton.
Sorry, Mike, but first we have to teach facts, whether in history, math, science, English. No more “feel good” subjects. Second, I don’t want kids to learn the “compassion” of socialists. (Who define compassion as giving somebody money that you stole from someone else. No, we have had enough of your approach and it ruined our educational system.
In a skills centric system (like testing) students will become mature by realizing that have to work to get the grades. No one will give it to them.
Mike, what about communities that are disfunctional, such as Dayton. Most of our school board members over the years have not, shall we say, up to the task. For a long time the purpose of the Dayton Public Schools was to employee people at pay above the average of the area, especially the administrators. Once testing began and state mandates for improvement came down, the DPS had to face reality. If local control can work, you must have competent “locals.”