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Millions of America’s students headed off to school this fall, sporting brightly colored backpacks and determined to make this their “best school year yet.” At the same time, federal and state policymakers are making tough new demands that our schools change and improve – so that “All students learn at high levels.” New standards, tests, timelines and consequences are all being put in place to make sure that “No child is left behind.”
Yet, all across the country, many policymakers, journalists, teachers, parents and students themselves are troubled by a haunting feeling that all this effort may not really produce the degree of change and improvement that we need. At a minimum, we are now taking a series of risks that are neither wise nor necessary to be making with other people’s children. These are, after all, demands and results well-beyond what we’ve ever expected of American public education – all at a time of severe budgetary pressures on states, districts and individual public schools.
That, at least is the serious concern of a small group of Minnesota-based public policy veterans who have come together as Education|Evolving… a joint venture of the Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University. The individuals behind this initiative believe…
… it’s an unwise and unnecessary risk for the state and nation to be trying to get the results we need solely by changing the schools we now have… … the issues about teachers and teaching should not be debated only in the old employer/worker framework… … the solution to maintaining financially viable public education in rural areas may not lie in the three old 'solutions' of excess levies, consolidation and state aid… … today’s schools should not go on largely failing to take advantage of new electronic technologies and other substantially different ways of teaching and learning… … and the critical discussion about the future of K-12 education in Minnesota and nationally must not proceed solely as a discussion among adults, with students largely left on the outside looking in. |
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Education|Evolving is undertaking a number of initiatives over the coming year. They include a national initiative to convince policy makers, education reform leaders, journalists and others that creating new schools should be an essential element in achieving needed changes and improve-ments in teaching and learning – at least equal in importance to changing the schools we now have.
One focus of this initiative is to introduce the concept of an “Open Sector” – to help create the kind of legal and political environment in which new schools can be created and succeed. Another – launched by this report – is aimed at state policymakers and the national research community – to fundamentally reconfigure the premises used in asking the critical question, “How are chartered schools doing?” Other ongoing Education|Evolving projects focus on promoting the concept of “Teachers as Owners” and on strengthening and enhancing the role of the agencies and organizations that sponsor chartered schools.
Education|Evolving’s leadership is provided by two Minnesota public policy veterans: Ted Kolderie, senior associate at the Center for Policy Studies, and Joe Graba, a senior policy fellow at Hamline University. Its coordinator is Jon Schroeder, former director of Charter Friends National Network.
Education|Evolving’s activities are regularly updated on the initiative’s new and unique web site – www.educationevolving.org. To receive print and electronic updates of Education|Evolving initiatives, contact info@educationevolving.org.
