< PREVIOUS ] [ 1991 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
Along with thousands of other Coloradans, I spent last
Monday night in the Colorado Town Meeting
Teleconference.
Gov. Roy Romer invited patrons of the
state's 176 school districts to discuss the six educational
goals proposed by President George Bush for the year
2000.
In Grand Junction that afternoon, the President called
for revolutionary
changes in American education.
I was assigned to a group to discuss Goal No. 3: All
students will leave grades 4, 8 and 12 having demonstrated
competency in challenging subject matter including English,
mathematics, science, history, and geography, and every
school in America will insure that all students learn to
use their minds well so they may be prepared for
responsible citizenship, further learning and productive
employment.
We had a lively discussion, although we agreed on hardly anything, and never got around to the citizenship part. What can be tested? What do test results mean? Will this make teachers teach to the test? If so, what's wrong with that?
What should we expect a high-school graduate to know? If there are standardized national tests, does that necessarily lead to a standardized national curriculum? That might not be terrible -- they have one in auto shop which works pretty well. But standardization means mediocrity, someone else said.
Why do we need this lock-step progression from grade to grade? Could elementary education be less skill-oriented, and more project-oriented; kids will acquire the skills as they pursue their projects -- that's how we learn after we leave school.
How can they call for raising the standards and for raising the graduation rate? Those are contradictory goals, unless a community is willing to invest more in education. Not necessarily money, but time; the teachers kept saying they can't do it all, that it's important for parents to spend time with their children -- going over homework, reading bedtime stories, amplifying, explaining.
But in a society with so many single-parent households,
parental time and energy are in short supply. Not that
short,
someone said. We could do wonders for
education in Salida if we just pulled the plug on the
cable-TV company.
I felt encouraged by our free-wheeling conference. We returned to see live TV reports from various locations. A Denver woman asked Romer why Colorado couldn't put the energy into education that it put into the United Airlines deal, and our room echoed with whoops and applause.
The Fort Collins report came from an assistant
superintendent, who babbled interminably in Educanto about
enhanced learning experiences
and the like. Murray
Marks, a retired friend, said afterward that She missed
only two cliches,
but he mercifully spared me from
hearing them.
Gov. Romer said that it sounded as though what was going on in Fort Collins was going on all over Colorado.
Alas, he was probably correct. The doctors of education will insure that whatever reaches the governor is the same old song: Give them more money to spend in the same old ways, and when American students continue to do worse, it will not be the fault of the educationists, who will want even more money.
President Bush is right. We need a revolution, since traditional town-meeting democracy will accomplish nothing if the educationists retain their power.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1991 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >