With the recent creation of an education advocacy group, Gates and Broad prove that they understand where the focus of this nation should be. If only the politicians would listen to them… If you think about it, education should be the top priority on any candidates list. In 20 years, the Iraq war will just be another note in the history books, privacy laws will have been changed, and moral debates will barely be remembered. However, it is the students in schools today that will be running that future. What it comes down to, is do you care more about the short term or long term? Any investor will tell you the best investment is an investment in the the future, not a quick deal. Why do politicians not place stronger emphasis upon education? Mostly because the American people don’t care much about education. If you look at the issues, educational reform isn’t even on the list. Hopefully, with the support of billionaires like Bill Gates and individual bloggers like Will Richardson, we can shift the focus to the future.
According to the chair of Strong American Schools, the New York times misrepresented the initiative in the article. I apologize for depending upon the mainstream media for my information, but I will keep this post unaltered for the record.
…will instead focus on three main areas: a call for stronger, more consistent curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening the school day and year; and improving teacher quality through merit pay and other measures.
I’m glad that the business leaders understand where we need to put our focus. However, though we share the same objective, I disagree upon their methods. What they are sponsoring sounds too much like our current system - just longer and more standardized. National standards lead to national testing and less individualized learning. If the government sends out regulations on exactly what must be taught - and how it must be taught - there is very little room for teachers to develop individual projects based upon the needs of their classroom. This approach may work for computers and businesses, but it fails to acknowledge that all students learn differently. Meanwhile, simply extending the school day seems like a method of adding more time for memorization to me. Instead, I feel we should be giving students more free time to explore what interests them. With this method, the school day might only be 5 hours but students would have to do monthly/weekly presentations upon an independent study topic. Despite these shortfalls, this initiative understands the importance of paying teachers competitively. This is a major problem, since most teachers are payed so little that you have to be an idealist to pursue an education field. This is not how it should be. Good teaching, not powerful technology or better accounting, is the best investment in our nation’s future. Many intelligent people, including me, would like to peruse a career in education except they know that their talents can earn them 2 or 3 times as much in other industries. ED in 08 is walking in the right direction, but on the wrong path.
Well, American education system does not actually have even half the national systems as other systems do. But nice article.
Oh I meant “national standards” not national “system.” Many countries have centralized exams even, which determine students’ destiny.
Thanks for dropping by, Mr. Guest.
It’s true, we don’t have as many national standards - yet we have more national testing. The worst part, though is how the results are used. Instead of helping struggling students and schools, they are penalized… not exactly very helpful is it. As for the part of “determining students’ destiny,” I’m not too fond of that idea. Just think, you end up in some dead-end job just because you woke up on the wrong side of the bed the day of the exams. In fact, I think we should place far less emphasis upon standardized test scores and shift the focus to critical thinking, writing, and problem solving abilities exibited in the classroom and/or projects.