Idea: Education Transformation Must Come First

Here in Pennsylvania, much of the General Assembly’s current focus is on education funding. As is usual, politics has become mingled with our students’ learning and individuals are finding themselves being drawn to one side of the debate or the other.

On one side, many Democrats see an increase in taxation and spending as the solution to the education funding problem.

On the other side, many Republicans see a decrease in taxation and spending – along with a voucher system – as the solution.

I won’t get into the finer details of either side’s argument, but what I would like to point out is that Pennsylvanians seem to be putting the proverbial cart before the horse when it comes to “fixing” our public schools. They see the symptoms – increasing violence, higher student/teacher ratios, falling test scores, higher drop-out rates, etc. – and they think that the system either needs more money or less money to get back on track.

I’ll give the “school choice” crowd some credit for trying to find a solution that is somewhat new and different, but I’m not convinced that school choice alone will do us any good. With a voucher system, we’re either going to create two classes of students (poor students with vouchers versus rich students without vouchers) or we’re going to give everyone a voucher and public schools will eventually become special education schools after all of the regular education children leave for private schools.

What we need to do – in my humble opinion – is put first things first. If we were to step back and look at the big picture of education, what would we see? I think that leading education thinkers like Sir Ken Robinson are seeing this bigger picture and they are starting to turn some heads with their revolutionary ideas. What people like Sir Ken are saying is that we need to get beyond the money and get to the root problem, which is the fact that we are pouring exorbitant amounts of money into a prehistoric educational system. In an age where information is readily available everywhere we go – on phones, tablets, laptops, televisions, etc. – why are we still sending our children to brick-and-mortar locations to study from textbooks? Advances in technology are decentralizing everything we do, so why must the idea of “going to school” be so closely guarded?

Of course, there are downsides to decentralization. It would mark a significant change in the way we behave, and that is always difficult to overcome. Who would monitor them? Who would discipline them? Who would feed them? How would they learn music? It would certainly be a challenge to take what is currently working for only a few million college students (distance learning) and apply it successfully to over 75 million elementary, middle, and high school students. But to balk at the idea of progress simply because it is difficult is no good reason. Perhaps a good starting point would be a hybrid system – one where older students could opt in to a virtual learning environment for some or all of their classes. Our district has already implemented what we call our “Digital Academy”, and it has been a learning experience – some good response, some not so good – but it is a baby step toward the new world of learning.

With this vision of the future in our minds we can begin to plan out the steps we must take to achieve our goal – a transformation of public education. Certainly, we must fund our antiquated system until it can be replaced or phased out, but with a clear vision of what we want education to become we can get past the partisanship and politics that support the status quo. We need to look at some of the baby steps that have already been taken in other countries where a vision for the future is already shared by many who have no system of education – the expansion of the internet into poorer countries has been a catalyst for countless projects focused on the use of inexpensive technology to help students educate themselves.

Where others see failure in education, I see hope. It is my hope that I can be part of this educational reformation and see my own child become part of this new breed of learners – those who access information through technology and blaze their own educational trails.

Let us look beyond the money. The funding will sort itself out if we would simply deal with the root of the problem.

Tags: crisis, education, funding, leading education, sir ken, special education schools, student teacher ratios, voucher system