Education Portfolio: Links, Articles and Thoughts
Deborah Bond-Upson, Social Justice Council
Education Talk Story at First Unitarian Church April 19, 2011
Hawaii Department of Education Flow Chart for Parents
The Education Crisis is now so extreme, that Filmmakers are Making Movies About It!
Documentaries spark education debate a CNN article, chronicles charter school frenzy depicted in "Waiting for Superman" and "The Lottery", two 2010 releases.
A Trio of Films Ratchet Up the Pressure on Teachers is a Sacramento Bee article on "The Lottery", "Waiting for Superman", and "Teached".
"Waiting for Superman: Strong Data, Great Stories, Wrong Conclusions" is my review of the Oscar winning director Davis Guggenheim's portrayal of the school crisis.
King 5 Seattle News blogs about "The Cartel" which examines misuse of education statistics and "Race to Nowhere" which focuses on the toll of No Child Left Behind tactics on our children.
Education Crisis and Opportunities
The short lists of Crises and Opportunities below is an excerpt from Learning: a Unitarian Universalist Kuleana my November 21, 2010 sermon.
The Sermon sought to focus on our individual and church kuleana, responsibility and capability, to respond to the dangers and hope which education can address.
We face critical crises:
1. The U.S. was a pioneer in education globally, now we’ve fallen behind. We are boring our children our children with subject requirements and tests. Our children are using new technologies and communicating in new ways, but when they get to school we tell them to turn it off and learn the old way. We need to listen to them and find new ways to educate.
2. Out of our 3.2 million public school teachers, 1/3 leave within their first 3 years, just when they are mastering the job. We need more great teachers.
3. The U.S. is 20th out of 28 dev countries in HS graduation rate. A student drops out every 26 seconds, 1.2 m per year. If the drop-outs for 2010 would have contributed $319 billion more over their lifetimes to the economy if they graduated. Our struggling economy cannot afford this drop out drain.
4. Children spend 40 fewer days in school than in China and our kids lose 22% of what they’ve learned in a year over the summer. We need a new school calendar.
5. From the beginning of No Child Left Behind given the level of funding expected to support it, it has now been underfunded by $71 billion dollars and now lots have children have been left behind. We need more funds, funding redesign, or both.
At the same time, the opportunities are rich, vibrant and hopeful:
- We can build a new model of education
- Giving the millions of teachers who are teaching each day world-class instructional tools
- Proven teacher education models for supporting and rewarding highly effective teachers
- New parent
- Foundations, corporations, parents, and politicians are realizing that failing to improve learning is bad economics, abysmal social policy, and devalues our
Save the Date: FACE Education Talk Story at Our Church April 19th at 6:30pm
One of our First Unitarian Church of Honolulu responses is to host Education Talk Story April 19m, 2011, bringing together parents, teachers, students, and community members to share our experiences of education hurdles and joys. The Talk Story will fuel work by us with FACE. to raise awareness with the public and governmental bodies and to create solutions.