Monday, August 1, 2011

Where will education improvement come from?

The goals of public education have been changed (improved?) in a top-down way many times over the past 170 years or so of its existance. Policymakers have used public education:

• to prepare citizens for democracy,
• to assimilate a flood of immigrants into American culture,
• to eliminate racism,
• to give equal opportunities to people with disabilities,
• to accentuate science and math to support defense goals,
• to support economic goals and, most recently,
• to attempt to transition from public education to private education.

While these education policies may or may not support valuable social goals, none are specifically targeted at the core goals of education:

• to enhance student learning and achievement and 
• to nurture student enthusiasm so learning continues throughout life.

Who supports the core goals of education? The educators, not the policymakers.

When we consider the question of how to improve education, it is important to separate the education goals from the social goals. Policymakers will continue to use public education for their social goals but we must rely on educators to improve education. This is why educators must take responsibility for the continuous improvement of education co-equal with their responsibility for teaching their classes. Improvement of education will only come from the educators.

There are two additional benefit to relying on educators to improve education. Educators observe their students as they develop from children to adults. While it doesn't show up on lists of learning standards of the target curriculum, teachers know that they also have responsibilty:

• to help children mature and
• to prepare them to live their lives well.

It is fortunate that teachers realize this even when it does not appear on their job description.

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Keywords: continuous improvement