Since our nation’s founding, public education has been central to advancing both our democracy and our economy. The founders, from Jefferson to Adams, saw schools as places in which active citizens and contributors to the nation’s development could be formed. They envisioned education as a source of opportunity and upward mobility, and as a unifying factor across society.
Sadly, today, public education is too often a source of controversy and division, with an excessive focus on test scores—and finger pointing as to who is responsible for poor performance on them.
Perhaps the problem is that we are miring our schools in political stalemate, bureaucracy, and litigation. We have lost touch with the need to ensure that our young people are being prepared for the new realities all around us. Effectively addressing these new realities is a far greater imperative than many presently perceive.
[For more on this story by HENRY A. J. RAMOS AND ERIC C. ABRAMS, go to https://edsource.org/2018/publ...ratic-process/605620]
Comments (0)