"Carrying The Torch For Improved Education In The U.S."

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National Council For Better Schools

National Council For Better Schools

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America needs a cultural shift. Consider the following:

Parents/kids: Education needs to be guarded and held as the highest priority for a family. Parents need to ensure that the home is a supportive environment where high expectations abound, where communication openly flows, and where demands are made relative to investments of time and energy. Kids need to learn early that education is a gift, one that requires a serious investment on their part. We owe it to them to demand more of them. And, as adults, we need to guide our children to be prepared for life, and ensure they understand that neith education nor their life after is a lay-up. This is all about investment and return.

Teaching professionals: We need to hold our teachers in highest regard, treating them as the professionals they are while also holding them accountable to do their jobs. Not only do we need to honor this profession, we need to invest in it - to the point where we are attracting the top third of our college graduates to it. There should be no higher calling. In the process, we need to pay a competitive market wage. And pay moving forward should be accompanied by results as evidenced in student gains. To ensure this success, we need to arm our teachers with continual professional development opportunities as well as new tools in technology. The focus needs to be on effective teaching and not tenure. We need to better understand what makes a good teacher and find ways to replicate these practices in others. Teachers' performances need to be transparent so that parents know the probability that their child will receive a year's worth of education. Remember: our state's own constitution guarantees as much. Every child deserves an effective teacher - every year. Every school demands a strong leader.

Taxpayers and elected leaders: Public education becomes our highest priority. While demanding positive results, we acknowledge the need to invest along the way, including at the outset for quality preschool developmental care. Affordable quality care ensures developmentally, age-appropriate growing/learning opportunities. Effectively "public education" begins before birth. Once in school, kids receive the sound, basic education they deserve under our constitution, and we accompany it with solid afterschool programming to complement their day. To work, effective partnering is a necessity among parents and teachers and the community. Everyone has to pull their weight, including our kids.The school day has to be both rigorous and relevant - and, in the process, our teachers have to make it personal and individualized.

Technology: We've got to make better use of technology: from virtual learning to e-textbooks to smartboards to blanketed broadband access and the world of the Internet. There are new tools - interactive ones, which can dramatically help a teacher ensure that each child is learning at an appropriate level and constantly being pushed to the next. It's time for a paradigm shift here.

Finally, in this economic climate, we have got to be very thoughtful and very intentional. We have no choice but to learn to do more with less - including looking at new ways to spend the resources we have. The last quarter century has seen considerable inflows of currency with regrettably poor returns. It's imperative that we reassess how we spend our money and what we demand in return. It's time for a new day- from all constituencies: kids, parents, teachers, rule-makers, our society at large. We owe this to our children and their teachers.

From Kathy Ridge, a former nonprofit executive and the founder of Edvance Consulting Group

The great school system CMS can become necessitates developing excellent teachers; requiring emboldened administrators and school board members; modernizing delivery practices; funding innovative curriculum programs; and activating community support.

Great teachers are a prerequisite for a great school system. We hear about Pay for Performance with accountability, but that can often sound like "make them do better!" Every year, teachers' jobs become more complex. For some, programs such as Teach for America provide weekly professional support during the first two years in classroom management, learning styles and captivating student attention. In contrast, most teachers have to learn by "sink or swim." A great school system will provide teachers with high-caliber development and dynamic coaching that models and instructs. Having master coaches, including retired teachers, is critical to building mastery and motivation. As teachers are the primary determinant for student achievement, so principals are the key to retaining and inspiring excellent teachers. In the state's Working Conditions surveys, it is clear principals most affect how teachers feel about their jobs. Creating positive, dynamic cultures in each school is the principal's responsibility: where all share the belief every student can learn and every child will graduate from high school.

Antiquated practices of content delivery must change. Dated lecturs and worksheets don't recognize the real world for today's kids. Outside the classroom, students gain information via cell phones, not by passively listening. We teach today as our grandparents learned decades ago. In a great school system, every classroom must be wireless. Every class can use SMS texting to take tests and share opinions. Writing 140 character sentences will teach writing and editing. Long distance learning is not only more relevant, it is more cost effective. Teachers can spend their time working directly with students, creating participatory experiences. Teachers can help students assimilate and LEARN rather than preparing to present information. In a great school system, arts and innovation will permeate every subject to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Career and technical programs will have schools devoted to them, like New York City's K-14 programs, where students commit to earn a high school diploma combined with a college associate's degree. Employers can offer after-school and summer internships, summer employment and contingent job offers extended to students as they begin their final school year.

For a great school system, the community won't use the public schools as the punching bag for society's ills. Rather, the community recognizes school issues are the result of society's issues. City and county governments will work with each other and outside agencies to ensure children are ready for school and once there, healthy and secure enough to learn. Corporate and private funders will work to secure funding that enables transformation. We have a good foundation to become this great school system. We need the public will to insist on moving barriers and bureaucracy aside and committing the support , leadership and resources to create this future for our students and ourselves.

From Mike DeVaul, senior vice president for organizational advancement

with the YMCA of Greater Charlotte:

If it takes a village to raise a child, then why does it not take a community to educate one? In my view, a great public school system focuses on its core services and engages community partners to ensure that all students have goals beyond high school graduation. I believe that Success in school, work and life for any individual depends on a "network" of support (school, parents, mentors, extracurricular and enrichment opportunities) that nurtures his or her their potential.

First, we need shared accountability for learning. At the Y, we are determined to make the best use of a child's out-of-school time with activities that develop character and social skills, provide academic support through tutoring and connect students to positive role models. By opening the doors of communication between schools, businesses and organizations like ours, we could all have a better understanding of each child's specific needs and challenges and would be better equipped to work with parents and teachers to have greater impact on academic performance.

Second, I believe that greater emphasis on kindergarten readiness and post-graduation vocational study could significantly increase our kids' success rate. Could public and private business work together to re-invent the education system to one that started in pre-kindergarten and supported kids through age 20?

We also need to nurture strong parental support. Not by judging their abilities or intentions but by providing true supportive help. We have adults in our community whothat have felt disenfranchised by a public school system since their youth. Lacking the chance to connect to their own education as children, they have greater difficulty connecting now. The school system needs more volunteers to help foster and strengthen good parental navigation skills. Most of our challenge lies in some parental inability to understand the system. Instituting a parent mentoring program in our community could utilize parents with good navigation skills to help their neighbors make better decisions for their children. We stand ready to assist.

Lastly, as part of a cause-driven nonprofit that believes structured, enrichment activities truly help children learn, grow and thrive, I believe that every child should have access to out-of-school programs such as swimming, creative arts, dance, team sports, after-school programs and camp. Again, through collaboration with schools, businesses and organizations like the Y, and with the support of citizens who give their volunteer time and resources, we can provide year-round and lifelong structure and support that every child needs to succeed.

The YMCA has been working in concert with our National Office for several months re-engineering our programs the better support educational outcomes. We stand ready to be an even stronger ally with our schools and others. We are better together, it takes a community to educate a child!

From Ericka Ellis-Stewart, parent and civic activist:

A great public school system is one that is focused with laser-like precision on the business of educating children. It is a system where in which our community can rest assured that all children will have the opportunity to live up to their potential regardless of their geography, race, or socio-economic status. Simply put, each student has the opportunity to interact with and learn from a highly qualified teacher every day.

A great public school system is one that is ripe with options that allow students to flourish academically, socially, and emotionally. It provides a plethora of opportunities for traditional and specialized learning that are geared towards challenging young minds to become critical thinkers and the leaders of tomorrow. Its daily goal is to change the life of a child for the better at every intersection.

A great public school system creates a culture and environment of dedication and passion for teaching. The evidence of Learning is palpable in every corner of the schoolhouse. Teachers make learning come alive inside of the classroom. Principals are inspirational leaders and change agents. Parents are involved and highly visible. Educators are leaders in innovation who are valued and compensated for the contributions they make. Teachers no longer have to beg for reams of paper and hand sanitizer, or teach all day without a planning period.

In a great public school system, all schools throughout the district produce academically successful and globally competitive students who are prepared to enter college or the workforce upon graduation. Every school becomes a place where teachers want to teach and students learn. With the effective use of technology, learning is made applicable and relevant to real-world issues. Throughout the district, There is a strategic focus on recruiting, developing, and retaining dynamic and skilled educators. Each classroom has a qualified, and capable , and experienced teacher.

In a great public school system, each child has a strong foundation in reading, writing, mathematics, and science. All students are bi-lingual; fluent in English and at least one foreign language before entering high school. Music, arts education, and physical activity are no longer spare parts, but key components of the school day. The Educating of our children becomes about more than teaching to the test. It becomes focused on a child's growth, learning and development. School calendars are no longer tied to our agrarian roots and limited to only 180 days. School days are extended to provide children with more instructional time, if necessary. Achievement gaps become non-existent, and graduation rates soar, and no child is left behind.

In a great public school system, as a community, we commit our resources equitably and efficiently to ensure that all children become well educated, productive citizens. We are no longer satisfied with mediocrity or status quo. We demand continuous improvement and expect nothing less than overwhelming excellence. We must put children first and set aside our political and philosophical differences to become "the village" that it takes to educate every child in our community.

Every Child Deserves A Great School

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