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December 14, 2006

New report from business proposes new K-12 system

Providing high quality, universal early childhood education, targeting more dollars to disadvantaged students, and increasing teacher salaries are among the more agreeable recommendations in a report being released today that will surely stir the pot of conversation about how to improve our schools. Tough Choices or Tough Times "covers a wide swath of territory and asks readers to assume a great leap of faith in adopting its recommendations," said NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant in reaction to the report.

The National Center on Education and the Economy's report also recommends, ahem, the wholesale dismantling of school board governance and district operations, and replacing it with autonomous schools that are run by independent contracting firms owned by teachers. The primary role of central offices would be to write performance contracts with the operators of these schools, monitor their operations, and find better providers if they do not perform well.

The report also recommends a new testing scheme that will determine whether 16-year-olds can be sent to a two-year community college or technical school with hopes of transferring into a four-year state college. Students who score high can stay in high school to prepare for a second exam that will admit entrance into a selective college or university.

There is a recognition by the authors that schools need to move toward teaching and testing around creativity, innovation, facility with the use of ideas and abstractions, and the ability to function as a team. Tom Friedman reviewed the recommendations in his New York Times column noting, "Economics is not like war. It can be a win-win. But the ones who flourish most will be those who develop the best broad-based education system, to have the most doing and designing the most things we can't even imagine today."

Read more NSBA reaction here, commentary by the Christian Science Monitor here and early coverage by Education Week here.

What's your take on these recommendations? Let us know by sending a comment.

Posted December 14, 2006 3:17 PM | School Boards

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