If you believe education is a difference-maker in an individual’s life, then why do adults get in the way of ensuring our youth get the best education possible?
Every U.S. President has made education a “top priority” yet each term ends with little progress. New laws produce few results. Our attempts at solving the education challenge have largely achieved one thing – more bureaucracy. What remains undone?
1. Ensuring high quality teachers are in the classroom
2. Keeping our focus on the students, our youth
3. Being competitive globally in the quality of our education delivered and received
In a simple sense, this is the crux of the movie Waiting for Superman. See the movie; it will be worth your time.
Waiting for Superman delivers a perspective on the U.S. educational system which will anger, frustrate, and even inspire you. It really points out how our “systems” have gotten in the way of educating our youth in a high quality, meaningful way.
There are excellent teachers in our schools today. Think about your great teachers. Just as I was blessed with great teachers, I am sure you have been too. Unfortunately, the system does not reward great teachers; does not incent great teachers; and, worse of all, does not make it easy to remove teachers who do not perform or do high quality work.
Today, we have designed our education system with too many barriers, and most of these barriers come from adults. Whether it is the bureaucracies, teacher unions, or parents themselves, these systems have gotten in the way.
Watch this movie. Be open to what is happening in our nation and, more specifically, your school districts. Get involved to make it better, but keep your focus on what is right for the students, not the adults.
In an earlier post, we discussed the great hope for leadership, and Michelle Rhee was one of those new leaders who exhibited much promise. Political processes got the best again in this case. Remember what she had, in large print, proudly displayed in her office as a constant reminder?
“ENSURING THAT ADULT ISSUES NEVER COME BEFORE THE BEST INTERESTS OF CHILDREN.”
We need to remember this statement and apply it.
Also, let your really good teachers know that you appreciate, or have appreciated, what they do and how they do it. Both of you will be grateful for that moment of gratitude.
Hi thought you’d like to read this article from the New York Review of books on WAITING FOR SUPERMAN. Im all for improving public education and charter schools atleast offer us new ways of trying things out but read this article and what WAITING FOR SUPERMAN offers is not the solution to improving or fixing education.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/
Awesome post. I was already planning on seeing this over the weekend. As the parent of a first-year student this is a top of mind issue for me.
Thanks, Kent! It is a very good movie. The stats are startling, especially the ones which highlight how many thousands of our youth drop-out of school and the impact of that on our society. The focus needs to return to our youth, not the adults and their systems.