Dayton businessman, Russ Gottesman, this morning announced that he is seeking to be the Democratic Party’s candidate to represent Ohio’s 10th Congressional District. The event was held at the Patterson Homestead on Brown Street.

Gottesman’s message is that as an entrepreneur who at an early age started his own successful company, he understands how to bring jobs to the community. He said, “Jobs — it is what it is all about.”  

It appears that Gottesman is about 35 years old — I can’t find his age. He is married with one child and has another child that will soon be born. This is his first attempt to gain elected office.

Gottesman started Commuter Advertising — a business which provides audio advertising on city busses and returns part of the advertising revenue to the bus companies. So far, city transportation companies have gained over $1 million through his business.

Republican Mike Turner currently represents Ohio’s 10th District and has been elected to that position six times. The 10th District includes all of Montgomery and Greene Counties and until the 2010 reapportionment, when Ohio lost two congressional seats, this region was designated as Ohio’s 3rd District. After reapportionment, the Dayton region became the 10th District and now it is considered one of the more competitive districts in the state. In the 2012 election, however, Turner won almost 60% of the vote, while the Democratic candidate, Sharen Neuhardt, received 37% and a Libertarian candidate received 3%.

Regardless that Gottesman’s literature promises “a campaign of ideas,” at this launch of his campaign, I failed to hear anything other than the usual boilerplate that any challenger might be expected to include — jobs, reaching across the isle, innovation, inclusiveness, building bridges, new voice, new leadership, etc.

After the speech, as I was eating one of the campaign’s pastry treats, one of Gottesman’s campaign workers asked what I thought about the speech. I told him that regardless that Gottesman projects a good spirit and a confident attitude, to me, Gottesman’s promise about creating jobs is simply unbelievable. I said, in fact, I couldn’t imagine anyone will be much impressed with his promise of creating jobs and that if he persists on making jobs his main message, he will be wasting a lot of effort that could be put to better use. I said, to my ear, Gottesman’s speech advanced a point of view that might be called “Republican Lite” — and that Gottesman failed to say anything that would make anyone think that he has any empathy or compassion for the plight of ordinary citizens. The speech, for my taste, was much too business-like and lacked heart. I explained to the campaign worker that, in my view, Gottesman’s speech failed to communicate passion and conviction and that I didn’t hear Gottesman say anything that would motivate the Democratic base to do the hard work that will be needed if he, or any Democrat, is to have any hope for victory. I said, if he is to have a chance, he needs to find the words that will communicate emotions that were missing in this initial effort.

Impressive today was the setting and overall organization of the event. About 50 people were in attendance. It appears that Gottesman has already put together an experienced team, and that, evidently, he has money to spend. Also impressive was the turn-out of much of the Montgomery County Democratic Party establishment. In each of the previous campaigns against Turner, this is the first time, in my memory, there has been such an early launch with a lot of the party establishment in attendance. Endorsed Democratic candidate for the Mayor of Dayton, Nan Whaley, introduced Gottesman and on the stage showing their support was Mark Owens, chair of the party, along with County Treasurer, Caroline Rice; County Commissioner, Dan Foley; County Recorder, Willis Blackshear; and State Representative, Fred Strahorn.

I’m wondering if this support by party leaders signals that there will be a push by the Montgomery County Democratic Party establishment to officially endorse Mr. Gottesman for the nomination — a push, as in the mayoral race and Ohio House races, to discourage unchosen Democrats from participating in the Democratic Primary.

Notably absent from this gathering was the Democratic candidate for Dayton mayor, A. J. Wagner — the candidate that failed to get the MCDP endorsement — and also absent were Wagner supporters, County Commissioners, Debbie Lieberman and Judy Dodge.

Our monthly meeting of the South of Dayton Democratic Club is this evening at 6:00 at the Wright Library in Oakwood. On the agenda is indicated time for a brief discussion of some of the ideas in my book, Public Education 2030.  I sent this e-mail to the club members.

Dear Friends, I see our agenda for this evening includes the opportunity to briefly discuss some of the ideas in my book, Public Education 2030.  (You can get a PDF here). 

One essay (p. 30) reports on Ted Strickland’s forums on the future of Ohio’s system of public education. In these forums, Strickland challenged his listeners to imagine what a new system might look like.  He challenged his listeners to imagine: “We are an artist looking at a blank slate and asking what is the best thing we can create here.”

In my career in teaching math at West Carrollton High School, I became convinced that public education is in need of starting again with a blank slate. I was charged with transmitting a curriculum that I knew was irrelevant to what many of my students needed. I saw how the potential of students and teachers was wasted and how even top students were unmotivated to accomplish much of quality. I became convinced that if public education should have a strong future, it needed big changes.

Strickland’s effort to get forum participants to brainstorm  a new system sounded like a great idea — but the discussion went nowhere. Participants wanted to defend their personal stake in the present system — a school nurse wanted to know how nurses would be impacted, an art teacher wanted to emphasize the importance of art in the curriculum, a math teacher suggested that there should be more math requirements, and on and on.

Strickland’s effort in these forums was doomed to fail because starting with a blank slate and thinking anew is not easy and most everyone in attendance at the forums had a stake in the present system.

In the essay, “In Education, Let’s Stop Trying To Improve A Horse and Buggy System,” (p. 24), I suggest that asking someone to imagine a new system of public education would be like asking someone in the 1800‘s to envision the automobile. Most buggy makers if given the chance would have opposed transforming the horse and buggy system, but, I write,

 “Eventually some buggy makers came to grips with the reality that their future was in the personal transportation business, not the buggy business. Similarly, school boards must begin to come to grips with the reality that the future must center on authentic education, not on schooling. There are many special interests dedicated to advancing the empire of schooling that now exists, but once the public sees a system of authentic education, the current system of schooling will become obsolete. The task for educational leadership is to envision a quality system of education that will inspire voters to move from the horse and buggy age and invest in the system of the future.”

In the last thirty years there have been many efforts to reform schools — but what is needed is an effort to transform them.

• Reformation starts by focusing on the component parts of the system — curriculum, class size, teacher training, teacher evaluation, school evaluation, etc. — and seeks to make improvement in those component
• Transformation starts by focusing on the purpose of the system—and taking a big picture view of looking at the system as a whole, seeks to create a system design where all the resources of the system work to accomplish the purpose of the system.

The mission statements of schools commonly state these aims:

1. Each child will acquire the tools and experience needed to develop his or her potential, and,
2. Each child will gain the knowledge, habits, temperament, and character that will empower him or her to be an effective citizen

The problem is, such mission statements have little impact on what actually happens in schools. Kettering is spending over $13,000 per child per year. Wouldn’t it be great if the resources of the system were focused on accomplishing these high sounding aims? As it is, the actual mission of every district and every school is to get a high score in the state system of school evaluation.

The way forward is via transformation, not reformation. The place where transformation could have the biggest chance for success is within communities where schools already are deemed “excellent” — the south of Dayton suburbs of our club members. Pumping more money and more effort into the present system can only be a short-term strategy. It cannot be a long term solution. In terms of public education policy, we are moving in the wrong direction and unless there is thoughtful intervention, the long term prospect for public education actually accomplishing its stated aims is not good.

One principle that most Democrats hold dear is the importance of sustaining and strengthening our system of public education. In terms of public education, we must be forward thinking, we must be the party of ideas.  We need to be much bolder in our advocacy, much bolder in our building of community consensus about this important topic.

There is much to talk about and I look forward to our discussion. Sincerely, Mike Bock

Trace Pickering in the April edition of the F.M. Duffy Reports, says the reform of public education is not sufficient, that what is needed is transformation. Much of what he says resonates with the point of view I develop in my book, Public Education 2030.

The first step to solving a problem is to understand the problem — to understand the nature of the problem. If we seek to solve the problem of how to improve public education, then we must first identify the problem to be solved. Pickering says there are two categories of problems — some problems are “tame” and others are “wicked.” Pickering says school reformers make a big mistake by classifying the problem of how to improve schools as a tame problem — when, in fact, it is a wicked problem.

Pickering explains, “Education has been transformed into a wicked problem. We’ve moved from the relatively tame problem of preparing people for machine-like factory work and advancing the ‘melting pot’ theory to a wicked one in which we desire a much more nuanced and purposeful end: helping children unfold their full potential. As Horst and Rittel pointed out, wicked problems are of the social domain. Since education and learning are part of the social domain tame solutions provided by classical systems are doomed to failure.”

Pickering holds that the order of magnitude of the change we need in education is a paradigm change. He says reformers accept the current Industrial Age paradigm of schooling and focus on what can be produced and measured: “test scores, graduation and attendance rates, time-on-task, teacher compensation and evaluation schemes, school report cards, etc.”

When education is seen as a tame problem, Pickering says, “solutions become sound-bytes of the obvious: bad or underpaid teachers, lack of competitions, low standards, complacency, poor curriculum, poor instructional practice. They are framed as beautifully simple, seductive, independent, tame problems to be solved. It makes sense to seek improvement via upgrading in the curriculum, raising standards for teacher certification, etc.”

Pickering says that schools, in the current paradigm, are seen as places of production. But what is needed is a transformation to a new paradigm that will see schools as places of learning. He says, “If we are faced with a tame problem, like how to squeeze another 3% out of an existing system, then reform works just fine. But if we need to realize order-of-magnitude sorts of change, then we are faced with a wicked problem requiring transformation.”

Pickering quotes Peter Block, “Transformation occurs only through choice.” He says,

Unlike reform, transformation cannot be coerced, mandated, sold, bartered, bribed, negotiated, or threatened into existence. Choice is a useless and foreign tool to the classical system construct that loves order, standardization, scalability, and predictability. If transformation is achievable only through choice then perhaps the best answer to transforming our schools lies in our communities.

Transformation means engaging the community, where choice is not simply an empty word or mantra for a narrow agenda but holds restorative power. Wicked problems are dissolved and the creation of an alternative future are only achieved through social processes, not through industrial-age hierarchies and traditional power brokers. Where large bureaucratic institutions move slowly and take only presumed “safe” routes to change, strong social networks have the ability to rapidly prototype new designs for new outcomes. (Conklin, 2010)

Transformation, then, cannot happen but with and through community. Only in community can deeper questions be answered. It is in the community’s answers to the questions: “how do we want to raise our children?” and “what is the ultimate goal of education?” that hold within them the power of transformation. It is the community’s answers that craft a holistic, integrated, interdependent design for learning and the unfolding of their children’s potential and which gives them the power and choice to execute on it.

Unfortunately, our communities have slowly and steadily abdicated their power and authority to the classical system designed to make things efficient through the creation of sameness and predictability. We are now faced with a dual problem – how to help communities both reclaim their efficacy and primacy and to understand and apply socio- cultural systems thinking and practice. Communities must first quit abdicating their power to outside others, “experts,” and distant institutions and then go about the work of creating the future they want.