"Our kids aren't smarter than they were three years ago, it's just that our expectations are higher for them." -Arne Duncan
This chapter was media rich, but well worth the time spent. In President Obama's 2008 speech on education, he defines his approach and suggested solutions for education in America. There are two points I will comment on.
First, I like what he said about training for the future: If we want to outcompete the world tomorrow, we out-educate the world today. Granted, out-educate is not the best English grammar, the point hits home. Even as we are learning in this class, with the enormous changes in technology, global interaction, and knowledge, the educational methods and curricula of last century will not suffice.
Second, he asked a question that I did not hear a sufficient answer to, "Why is our dropout rate among the highest in the industrialized world?" This was an alarming thought. How is it that we can have so much knowledge, resources, creativity, etc. and yet our youth are seemingly not interested and do not utilize them to the full? He did mention having highly qualified teachers, funding schools that are excelling, and digitizing the classrooms, but are these changes going to affect the dropout rate, or is there other factors that are affecting student motivation?
The third video in this chapter was a very interesting take on education from a completely different viewpoint, namely that it is a monopoly and should not be administrated by the government. From this viewpoint, the reason that education is failing is because the government is not equipped nor designed to fulfill this role. There are many salient points in this video, especially when they speak of parental duties and religious functions being stripped away by strangers employed by the government.
I can see the dilemma that we are presented with in this country. On one hand, I believe that private, free-market, excellent education would be one of the best forms of education. Yet, on the other hand, how many children's parents would not be able to afford or choose such an education for their children. This could create a new feudal age in America. As well, though government schools can dictate and indoctrinate America's youth with nationalistic ideals and obedience, they do bring a common knowledge and dialogue to our nation that can be very healthy for understanding and working with one another.
Big Question: How can we as educators and future leaders in education craft a system that draws on the strengths of government education and private education in a way that provides the best, most adaptable education and significantly reduces the dropout rates of our schoolchildren?
Link: http://nces.ed.gov/
This is a link to the National Center for Education Statistics
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