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The irony is that everyone in the country seems hell bent on condemning
the schools while demanding that they be fixed. But nobody is willing to
foot the bill. In addition, nobody seems to know what we should be
paying for. It looks as if we have cut out all the frills so the
students would get the basics, and the result is they’re getting less of
the basics than ever before. It seems that whatever we do to try to fix
the situation only blows up in the faces of the people who try it.
Maybe it’s time we tried to figure out how and why people learn. It’s a
given that they don’t learn the way the professors of education say they
do, because if they did, the schools would be doing a fine job right
now. So something must be terribly wrong with our theories of education.
It’s time to forget about what’s currently taught in schools of
education, and instead go out and find the places where all the students
are actually learning what they’re taught, and are retaining it once
they’ve learned it.
We’re likely to find this happening in places where experts aren’t the
ones designing the curriculum. The trouble with experts is that mostly
they’re people who didn’t have much trouble with learning. Therefore
they have trouble understanding why some people don’t learn.
We need the people that aren’t learning to guide us by telling us what
they don’t understand and why they don’t understand it. That way we can
build programs that actually teach them what they need to know.
This is not difficult to do, but it’s not happening right now. Until we
acknowledge that the programs now in use don’t get the job done, we
won’t be able to open our minds to the creation or use of already
existing new programs that can get the job done.
In my experience there are plenty of them out there. But the very best
programs are seldom if ever used in schools. It’s time to change that.
Until it’s changed, there’s a zero chance that education in this country
will improve.
What’s needed is a group of flagship schools. These will use the most
effective methods currently available, even if no other school has ever
used them. They will demonstrate that all students can achieve a very
high level of performance. We will know that they are working because
their students will become more intelligent and better motivated.
The information, skills, professional training ability and
organizational structure required to build these schools exists now. It
needs to be focused on schools staffed by people who really want to
educate their students as well as humanly possible. When the flagship
schools demonstrate what they can do, their methods will spread all over
and leave behind the need for a No Child Left Behind law.
To meet this goal, we must find corporations that will give each school
that wishes to take up this challenge a draw-down account of several
million dollars. That money will fund a five year developmental period
during which the school will create the best possible educational
program – one that means huge success for every student, regardless of
background.
When ten such schools have achieved this goal, public officials will
discover that tax moneys now being spent on education need to be spent
very differently. As a result, schools will offer every one of their
students the best party in town combined with a one way ticket to a life
of professionalism and high level competence. They will actually save
taxpayers money because the extremely high cost of correcting past
mistakes will disappear.
I believe that the course of action I have described in this article
will become a reality within the next two years, and that the result
will mean a major turning point in our currently declining civilization.
Those corporations that help out in this way will have reason to take
pride in doing the most important thing now needed to revitalize the
American economy.
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