I recently attended the Foundation for Excellence in Education’s second annual national summit on education in Washington, DC. Started by Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the Foundation works to improve schools by helping them achieve higher standards and using data systems to drive district- and school-level decision making.
To open the summit, Governor Bush compared today’s schools to milk. Yes, I wrote “milk.” At first, I thought that perhaps he was going to describe how schools, like milk, have changed little over the years and how the two could be described as somewhat bland. I was wrong.
Instead, he described how milk, not schools, has changed to meet the needs of diverse consumers:
“Go down the aisle of nearly any major supermarket these days, and you will find an incredible selection of milk. You can get whole milk, low fat milk or skim milk. You can get organic milk, milk with Vitamin D, or milk enzymes to improve the way your brain functions. You can get flavored milk—chocolate, strawberry or vanilla—that doesn’t even taste like milk. Most of the time, there is a whole other refrigerator case dedicated to milk alternatives—like soy milk, almond milk, and rice milk. They even make milk for people who can’t drink milk. Who would have ever thought you could improve on milk? Yet, freedom, innovation, and competition found a way.”
The governor’s point is clear: something as standardized as milk has changed to meet the our varied needs, yet all too often, our traditional K-12 schools still look very much as they did back in the day when milk was delivered to the front door every morning.
In a time when our country needs more scientists, engineers, and other highly-skilled 21st century workers, we are producing fewer such graduates each year. Students who engage in technology “outside of class” to communicate, learn, and share ideas are often left feeling disconnected and unengaged when they enter their traditional school. That disconnection has serious consequences: in most states, high school dropout rates average 30-40%.
Governor Bush ended his speech with a call to action:
“The great social, moral, and economic challenge of our time is providing a high quality education to every child in our nation. Our success will define our destiny. An educated and highly skilled workforce will attract the investment that fuels job creation and wealth. A quality education will sustain our quality of life and the standard of living that is still the envy of most of the world.”
For the sake of our students and our nation, we must all work to transform education so that we inspire curiosity and creativity—and provide students with the knowledge and skills that they need to compete in today’s global economy. We should not accept that milk has undergone more transformations in the past four decades than our educational system.
Foundation for Excellence in Education’s - http://excelined.org
Bruce Friend is the Director of SAS® Curriculum Pathways®, an award-winning education resource that provides online lessons, engaging tools and activities at no cost to U.S. educators. Bruce has spent the past decade working in the field of online learning. He is a national pioneer in helping to establish the country’s first statewide online program and has been the chief administrator of two state virtual schools. In 2003 he was honored with the “Most Outstanding Achievement in Distance Education” award by the US Distance Learning Association. Prior to joining SAS, Bruce was the Vice President of the North American Council for Online Learning; a non-profit organization that provides support to students, parents, and online learning programs.
