The Best Hope For Public Education Is That Communities Vitalize Democracy And Exercise Local Control

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Mike Bock

Wow. I count forty education related web-logs that I’ve posted in the last four and one-half years — since I first started blogging.  Some of these essays are in my Lulu book:  Why You Are Not Entitled To Your Opinion.

The post that I find most personally provocative is #29: The Kettering School Board’s Biggest Challenge Is To Gain Public Support For Transformation written on September 10th, 2009, just one year ago — when I was a candidate seeking election to Kettering’s Board of Education.

As I see it, the only hope for the transformation of public education is that local communities elect members to their local board of education who focus on transformation of their local system as a priority.  The leap in improvement that is needed in public education requires getting our democracy to work at a grassroots level — a point David Matthews of the Kettering Foundation makes in his book, “Reclaiming Public Education by Reclaiming Our Democracy.”

The best hope that public education can be transformed is that, one by one, local communities begin to exert local control of their local system of public education.  Improvement in public education requires that one community show leadership.  It requires an improvement in the vitality of democracy, and, if there is one place on the planet where democracy should flourish, it just happens to be where I live:  Kettering, Ohio.

At election time next year, November, 2011, of Kettering’s five member board of education, there will be two positions open for election.  By the time of that local board of education election, my goal is to have my book (see #25 below) written — showing a plan and vision of the transformation of Kettering public education — with the idea that an informed public, if given a choice, will elect board member who support the vision outlined in the book.  For this new book, I hope to organize public seminars in Kettering to research and develop specific topics and to produce material suitable for publication.

To get my engine started, I’m going back and rereading these essays:

  1. The Education Of John Adams; March 22, 2006
  2. Schools That Would Make Joseph Stalin Happy; April 29, 2006
  3. The School of the Present Is Failing And Technology Is Not The Solution; November 30, 2006
  4. Motivation, Not Curriculum: The Key to School Reform; March 7, 2007
  5. Education For the Future Demands Authentic Teaching; April 1, 2007
  6. How Did Einstein Become Einstein?;  April 14, 2007
  7. A Great Question: How Can We Tell If a School Is Excellent? ; November 2, 2007
  8. Strickland Should Use Charter Schools To Help Fulfill His Promise: “Reform and Renew the System of Education Itself”; November 13th, 2007
  9. Public Schools Need Radical Reform, Educational Leaders Must Answer the Question: BY WHAT METHOD?; March 7th, 2008
  10. Barack Obama’s “Go To The Moon” Challenge For Our Time Should Be: Transform Public Education; May 9th, 2008
  11. To Transform Our System Of Education, We Must Redefine The Aim Of The System; May 27th, 2008
  12. The Change We Need In Education Is Radical Transformation Of The Present System; November 7th, 2008
  13. Let’s Frame the Question of “Achievement Gap” to Include All Schools and All Students; June 4th, 2008
  14. Thinking Through Purposes and Principles Needed To Guide the Re-Design of Public Education; July 17th, 2008
  15. In Education, Let’s Stop Trying To Improve a Horse and Buggy System; July 25th, 2008
  16. Strickland In His Educational Forums Shows Bold Thinking, But Bold Action Is Needed; August 1st, 2008
  17. John Goodlad Says Public Must Agree On “The Democratic Purpose Of Public Schooling”; December 16th, 2008
  18. Throwing Money At Public Education Is Not The Answer, System Change Is Needed; January 14th, 2009
  19. Gov. Strickland’s Education Plan Disappoints — Fails To Deal With The Central Issue Of System Structure; February 2nd, 2009
  20. Obama’s Theory That Education Is Key To “Lasting Shared Prosperity” Is Contradicted By Statistics; March 11th, 2009
  21. How A Lazy Disinterested Prince Came To Relish Learning, Treasure Understanding, Delight in Insight; March 23rd, 2009
  22. How Do We Restore And Nurture The Yearning For Learning We Were Born With?; June 7th, 2009
  23. When We Reject The Gods Of Our Childish Imaginations, What Remains?; June 25th, 2009
  24. “What Is The Purpose, The Aim Of Public Education?” — Every School Board Candidate Should Answer;  September 1st, 2009
  25. Kettering Public Education In The Year 2022: How Do We Get To A Great Future?; September 25th, 2009
  26. We Are The Ones To Make A Better Place; July 7th, 2009
  27. NEA’s Top Attorney, Bob Chanin, Says NEA’s First Goal Is To Advance And Protect Teacher Rights; July 9th, 2009
  28. What Quality Guru W. Edward Deming Had To Say About Reforming and Improving Public Education; August 30th, 2009
  29. The Kettering School Board’s Biggest Challenge Is To Gain Public Support For Transformation; September 10th, 2009
  30. If Education Is Just About Producing Good Test Scores, Then $11,000 Per Year, Per Child, Is Too Much To Spend; September 30th, 2009
  31. My Five Answers To The League Of Women Voters Emphasize Transparency, Planning For Future; October 7th, 2009
  32. Dr. W. Edwards Deming Urges Transformation — Warns Against “Remodeling The Prison”; October 8th, 2009
  33. The Key To Discipline: “Nurture The Yearning For Learning Every Child Is Born With”; October 23rd, 2009
  34. Public Education’s Biggest Failure Is To Prepare Students For Effective Citizenship; November 24th, 2009
  35. If The Bureaucracy Says You Are A “Quality Teacher,” Or A “Professional,” It Hardly Makes It So;  November 25th, 2009
  36. Pushing Kids To “Early College,” At End Of 10th Grade, Is Opposite Of Advancing Authentic High School Reform; February 25th, 2010
  37. John Goodlad Says We Must Agree On Mission For Schooling; May 4th, 2010
  38. Why Are There No Teachers in Kettering Schools Who Earn $200,000 Per Year — Or Even More?; April 1st, 2010
  39. How Authentic Teaching Is More Like Raising Beets Than It Is Like Building a House; June 17th, 2010
  40. To Bring Excellence To Public Education We Must First Engineer A Better System;  August 16th, 2010
Posted in Special Reports | 3 Comments

To Defeat Congressman Turner, Joe Roberts Should Develop A Compelling Message — A Video Project

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Mike Bock

During the Q/A at the South of Dayton Democratic Club, last night, I found myself publicly chiding Joe Roberts, one of our special speakers, to improve his web-site.

Joe Roberts, 25, with his Mom at his recent fund raiser held at the "Trolley Stop" in Dayton, Ohio. Joe is the Democratic candidate seeking election to congress to represent Ohio's 3rd District. Joe is challenging the Republican incumbent, Mike Turner.

Joe recently won the special 3rd District Democratic Primary — besting Guy Fogel and David Esrati — and is now working to unseat the Republican incumbent, Mike Turner. Our South of Dayton Democratic Club bought one ticket to Joe’s $125 fund raiser to be held at Mama Disalvo’s — and raffled it off. I think, Mary Parts was the winner.

During the Q/A, I told Joe that, especially, because he is only twenty-five years old, everything he does in the campaign will be held to a high standard of quality, maybe, even an unfair standard. I said that it is important that he meet every standard of quality and, regardless of his inexperience and youth, demonstrate that he is ready for prime time — ready to serve in Washington as an effective representative for the citizens of Ohio’s 3rd District.

But, I said, his web-site communicates an opposite message. The web-site has not been updated for over ten weeks and the web-site’s “position papers” appear to be only first draft efforts — each in need of a lot of editing and rewriting.

I told Joe that I found nothing printed, and no video — not at his web-site, nor his Facebook page — that gives a thorough and compelling case why voters who previously had chosen Mike Turner should, in this election, vote for him, the Democratic alternative.

Nothing is more important, right now, than that Joe devote his time and energy to developing a compelling message and that he find effective vehicles to deliver that message.

I’d like to see the Roberts’ campaign develop a twenty minute video that an interested voter would be able to download that would make a compelling case why a vote for Joe Roberts to represent Ohio’s 3rd District makes sense.  Without a compelling message, clearly crafted, Joe’s campaign has little chance of success — regardless of money raised, yard signs distributed, etc. — so I hope my comments are accepted by Joe.

Here are previous posts about the 3rd Congressional District.

Posted in Local/Metro | 1 Comment

How Will Technology Impact Our Future?

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Mike Bock

A friend sent me a link to a great video showing a collage of amazing “luck”  –people barely miss disaster — with a great sound track by Judy Garland: “This Is My Lucky Day.”
This is a you-tube video by a web-site called flixxy.com.  But, the site doesn’t give the embed code.  At you-tube, the video is not available, but other flixxy videos are shown with the embed code.

I found a flixxy video, “Did you know?”, that I embedded below, that shows the march of technology, over time — and has a lot of great statistics of how technology is impacting our world.  It suggests some profound implications for anyone seeking to anticipate the future — as I suggest in the book I am working on:  Public Education In Kettering, Ohio in 2022.


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