July 28 conference call
Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by Kelly.
We hosted a conference call about the current education landscape Tuesday night. Many thanks to those of you who joined us. For those that missed it, we now have a recording of the call. Since it’s a 4MB file, we recommend you email the link rather than the actual file.
Also, to help you follow along, this is the agenda we followed:
- Education Reform Bill HB2661 (George Scarola)
- What is in the bill
- What are the next steps to implement the bill
- Possible reconvening of legislature on 1776
- Overview of School Districts (George Scarola)
- Budget cuts
- Stimulus Funds run out 2010/2011
- National (Lisa Macfarlane)
- Stabilization/Race to the Top Funds
- State wide ballot issues (George Scarola)
- Initiative 1033
- Income Tax - Nov 2010
- Court Cases (Lisa Macfarlane)
- Federal Way equity lawsuit
- NEWS trial Sept
- Early Learning/Higher Education (Frank Ordway)
- Q&A
Listen to the entire conversation here.
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Guest Blogger: A Jeffersonian Education – Is it Time for an 18th Century Solution for 21st Century Problems?- Again
Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by jstokes.
A Jeffersonian Education – Is it Time for an 18th Century Solution for 21st Century Problems?
John Stokes
As much as I love communicating by the web and through avenues such as this blog, there is nothing like a conversation face to face. Often the best are pure happenstance. Yesterday I went to the event at State Rep. Reuven Carlyle’s house in Seattle for State Rep. Laura Grant, D. Walla Walla. As I wandered into the house from the porch another man introduced himself, noting that we both had great names. His was John Wong. As it turned out, John is Rep. Grant’s husband.
We talked about education, children and related topics. John is a college professor and as passionate about education as I am. In the course of the discussion he said that he believed in the Jeffersonian view of education - the idea of learning as teaching students how to think, thus preparing them to be leaders, entrepreneurs and statesmen. That education is meant to prepare every individual to understand their surroundings and make intelligent decisions about their life and the necessities of a civilized world to live in. Education as the great equalizer and the great lifter.
In contrast, he noted the assembly line approach to education which prepares the student for a job by teaching them what to think, and prizes the ability to regurgitate facts and figures over problem solving (something my daughter calls the Henry Ford method). Unfortunately, we both commiserated, the latter theory is the prevalent one today in many education circles.
Which got me to thinking about the direction of education in this State and how education reform today stacks up against these two views of the purpose of education. While I think there is an segment of the education community that values the idea of teaching our kids in the thinking, innovating and self-sufficient way, the mainstream is more about preparing kids for a job and most of all just getting them out the door with an acceptable test score that makes the school and the district look good for levy time. Thus the drive to shorten tests to multiple choice instead of the more costly and subjective essay form, and to water down the WASL to a more straightforward right ahd wrong answer format. And it is reflected in the “math wars” with the “computational” crowd wanting memorization and focus on doing problems and learning times tables as opposed to learning how to solve a math problem. Fortunately we seem to have come to an uneasy truce on this one that allows both approaches to work in tandem, but the push for getting rid of the investigative aspects, the “fuzzy math,” is fighting for control.
The competing views are also on display in the drive for what we euphemistically call “accountability.” We want hard facts, hard numbers; tell us what Johnnie and Susie need to know by the 4th grade and make sure they can show that in answers on a test. So by the 10th grade, we are satisfied if they can dredge up answers for questions at maybe an 8th grade level, and they can graduate from high school after sitting through two more years, and we consider that education reform. We try to raise the standards to Core 24 (and this is not saying that is actually Jeffersonian), and the howls come forth that kids can’t do that. The problem is that we really don’t know what we want and what is best for the kids, we think and decide from an adult point of view. What does Microsoft need, what does the corner Jamba Juice need in the way of employees, not what does the society need, what is best for our kids so they can have a good life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Think about it.
John Stokes
