Collaboration is the way to go. Everyone must do their job. The blame game is boring and a waste of time. We need the best teachers, parents that cooperate and support them, and principals that have taught and understand what’s needed.

Everyone must work hard. Students must be respectful, listen and do their work. If they don’t, there must be consequences. Parents must work with the schools to see that they’re followed through.

Seriously, back in the day, when parents got a call from a teacher, the problems just began. It worked. The “not my child” attitude has got to go and so does any professional that is not willing to work very, very hard!

Having teachers treated like doctors and lawyers means the vast majority of “clients” would pay for service, could easily get referrals and second opinions, and could change professionals at any time. And those professionals in high demand would make much more money than others. Is that what Mr. Van Roekl has in mind? Not that I think these are bad ideas…

The real changes that society needs are related to changing our relationship with the living world and with each other.

The ideas of these experts for the most part involve more efficiently inculcating in our young people the reductionist, rational materialist thinking that is destroying life as we know it.

Albert Einstein: “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”

In order for good teachers to suceed you need students who are willing to learn. It used to be you will do better than I have by graduating high school or college. The effort need to better ones self has been lost.

I’m a bit bothered at the education series because none of the “solutions” offered address the issue of motivating the student and their families towards finding education valuable. Some children and their families understand the long term value of an education while many more see little-to-no value in classrooms, teachers or schools because all they see are a long hallway of closed doors ahead of them.

Where is the promise that if you you study hard, learn a lot, get good grades, graduate, et cetera that you can go to college and get a decent job? For most children, and their parents, that connection is not possible. The families don’t have the means and there simply isn’t any employment in the neighborhood.

Mr. Zuckerberg and his friends might do more if they setup a scholarship fund that promised enough money to any student to get accepted to college from the schools in Newark, NJ and even moreso if some of his friends would promise first-refusal on employment after successfully completing college to those same students. Now that would be motivating and I’ll bet that classroom success would follow, children would get accepted to colleges, and employers would be looking for them because they would be the most motivated graduates.

However, for the moment, all that is being promised is more money into the system that cannot guarantee a scholarship or a job.

While I applaud any reports that address concerns about education, this piece showed one of the many obstacles to improving education while ignoring one of the root causes of the problem. Each of the individuals featured had their own idea about what the solution is, be it more science, more math, birth to five focus, cultural awareness, more stringent requirements for the profession of teaching or perhaps even a magic spell. Currently, everyone promotes their own silver bullet that will cure the ills of education (usually with an eye toward protecting a particular segment of the educational community) instead of looking at what the real issues are. Dr. Darling-Hammond may have gotten closest to the issue in that everyone needs to identify the purpose of education and our desired outcome.

Teamwells1 wrote of families and students finding value in education yet why would that be the case when America as a whole does not appear to do so. Schools seem to be the first targets of the nationwide budget cuts because we teachers only work nine months a year and only until 3:00 when we are working. Other nations value teachers, Americans generally dismiss them as a necessary evil or a taxpayer funded babysitter.
California spends nearly 7 times as much per inmate as they do per student, where have we placed our priorities?
The American educational system will never be fixed as long as we continue to view education in this fashion. All the reforms can only go as far as the American people are willing to support them with a full commitment to educating our children

Each discussion has it’s merits. Qualified teachers, children ready to learn, inclusion, respect. The United States and my home state of Wisconsin needs to wake up.
I know that I am a good teacher, I am more than qualified, I enjoy professional development, I want the best for my students and their families. If we continue to point fingers and blame each other for our problems and no one tries to work together (like Canada) the United States will in the very near future become a third world country.

There’s really great content in here. But the format is so boring. Would it be that much more expensive to make interviews look more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U ?

I haven’t seen the Need to Know segment about how to fix education yet, due to my focus on issues pertaining to a personal project I chose to utilize as an alternative form of continued education “Long-Term Field Study”.

I do have a collegic background and worked very hard to achieve the highest academic standing possible but as I progressed I discovered things were not to my liking in response I chose to walk away without a degree.

I enjoy learning with a passion, when I choose a subject of focus I become intense to the point where I don’t sleep, I thrive to take in the entire world of the subject matter.

So after leaving, I found myself stressed for a couple of years even took a few minor courses just to be happy, it didn’t work; eventually I realized life in a sense is a class room in fact when one achieves a degree life becomes the greatest classroom of all.

Thus I focused on doing a few rounds of field study projects just to see if I would enjoy the process, it blew my mind, it put me in a place that brought my passion back, enabled me to finally set up a personal project of continued education from the vantage point of looking from the outside to looking within all aspects of human existence.

I took steps that achieved remarkable results in the process, for example while in college I was a computer science major, when I left it was my opinion that this major wouldn’t do me any good since I was no longer in college, but one day I funny thing happened someone asked me if I wanted a computer, she was planning to toss it in the trash she claimed it was broken didn’t work so I accepted it took it home stared at the darn thing and asked myself what do I know about this machine, then it dawned on me, hey I went through technical training while I was in college, let me check my ole notes, refresh my procedures see if any of the procedures I learned would help me figure out what’s the problem with this pc.

Within an couple of hours I was able to correct a minor series of problems with the pc thus got it up and running perfectly, I realized the benefit in what I did, I worked on every aspect of that pc to learn what made it tick, I mastered it technically and eventually turned what was to be a college based career into a enjoyable hobby.

As time passed I continued my projects and realized there where a lot of interesting issues that from time to time where brought up by various political movements, mass media, and local residences one being education.

Eventually I realized for myself it reminded me of why I left college I didn’t like the direction I was being trained to function and wondered if that could be the same problem, to my horror I discovered it wasn’t, in fact it was worst, far more worst then I imagine.

I found the educational infrastructure system as a model has never advanced within itself, I see it as system that lacks a necessary level of advancement, it is part of the system of Academia logically it is required to maintain continuity advancements over the decades.

I don’t want to be misunderstood, there have been a few areas of advancements but minor in stature, mostly in locals that generate good tax roles but even so even those systems showed signs of literally dying a slow death.

The teachers, students, family’s have become frustrated, lost in the maze of a system in ciaos, wondering way things are going in every direction but what’s correct for the educational system what gives, even so life goes on in ciaos.

What is happening within the educational system is similar to the many changes I’ve experienced in life in general here in the “Outside World”, ciaos, never ending ciaos.

Then I wondered what can I do to figure out a solution to help balance out the educational system remove the endless realm of ciaos, even in theoretical form, just to see if I could come up with a feasible model form, something based on what I would need myself in everyday living circumstances.

I found a solution that I plan to apply to myself to improve my daily living circumstances, this solution derives from an odd incident I experienced as a child involving a machine, you see back in the old days I was in a very unusual situation and placed in the care of NYS as ward of the court, I was not happy when first arrived at the site I was sent too, basically it was a convent, anyway in the care of that site it was determined that I would be allowed to roam about and be given tasks to keep me happy as a lark.

At the site there was a green house, it was built by a gentleman who agreed to give me things to do in his shop at the green house, in the shop there was this machine, basically it was a generator of some sort, he could never use it because he had to do some unique work to get it working, so it sat there for yrs unused.

In time he let me use it as one of my play things, he said as long as I didn’t kill myself I could have the run of the place and tinker with the “Green Machine”, in time I did do something to that “Green Machine” which the gentleman found it funny and considered it to not be of harm and let me continue with what I was doing.

One afternoon he was approached by one of the sisters and left me in the shop to continue having my round of fun, so I turned to my work on the “Green Machine”, actually tried to turn it on it didn’t work, but then I got an idea, gave it a try and the darn thing started up and came to full power, it was loud too. Very loud.

The “Green Machine” as I was told after it was shut down wasn’t supposed to do what I managed to get it to do. Even though this occurred ages ago, I remember what I did and now understand why the “Green Machine” started up.

And to make matters worst I didn’t understand what was explained to me back then, you see I was 5 going on 6 years of age, all I seen that it was my play thing.

You see this experience I just shared it very unique, and to my amazement no one has done anything to match what I accidentally did so many years ago. This one concept once applied to a facility such as a academic facility will change it’s infrastructure in theory enabling a well needed opportunity to advance it’s existence.

Currently advancement in the educational system is sparsely limited due to cost issues, as well has to much dependency on the tax paying population thus further limiting it’s capacity to complete needed upgrades especially when a economic crisis occurs as is the case of late.

In my mind an academic site is the center of education, within it’s infrastructure should consist of continuity advancement practices, such as on campus residents for teachers, students and they’re families, with continued education offered to adults as well as their children attending the educational site, consist of a on campus recreational facilities for the teachers, students as well as their family and the public at large, as well offer annual programs of study for on campus residents as well as off campus residents.

The on campus offer should be a lifetime factor for the Student and Family.

That’s the model I’ve concluded that is needed to fix Education Nationwide.

What I’m saying in a sense is that all aspects of education should be focused on not just in the academic sense but as a home family based infrastructure, a home away from home concept.

Yes to sit down with the experts what they will most likely stress is how good the present system is functioning and can use some improvements.

That is true, but what about going further much further, with innovative alternatives I feel such an achievement is possible, apply a change that will enable a educational site to hold it’s own in a way where it has less needs then the current system of education support is structured.

For example an educational system that is capable of generating revenue on it’s own outside the support of tax payers, tuition, and the multiple fees charged to the participants within it’s programs would prove to have a positive effect.

It would lower the dependency a given educational system has on it’s community, and it would be able to put far more back into the community to encourage focus on all aspects of academic studies.

Currently our system is at a stage where it will either continue degrading to the point of no return, or a meeting of the minds will be reached to abate and correct it’s infrastructure across the board to the benefit of everyone.

I’ll check on the video once I can dry my brain up, it’s almost sprung a leak ..