This requires identifying teaching and learning strategies that have stood the test of time through meta-analysis of evidence-based best practices that have been proven through neuroscience, the science of reading, and the science of math. This also requires re-evaluating what doesn’t work in schools due to the generational needs in response to the industrial revolutions that include AI, technology inundation/addiction/misuse, and moral degradation of society. What do we keep and what do we eliminate? As an educational leader I put my entire life’s work into writing books and presenting nationwide at conferences including school boards associations, school leaders, practitioners, and teachers. I was a co-owner of Pushing Boundaries Consulting and co-authored with high impact educational leaders across the nation to outline what works and what doesn’t work. We address patriotism, DEI, digital dementia, and all the high capacity thinking skills like Socratic seminars and project based learning. School choice and vouchers alone will not fix the system. Most students of poverty will not opt for a private education experience. The fiber of the future of America depends on cleaning out and offering world class teaching and learning to our most impoverished communities. This will require massive rehiring and retraining as the current pool of educators have reached a critical pinnacle of overturn and burnout. We must hire the most skilled best and brightest at practitioner level with longer and stronger apprenticeships that demonstrated efficacy in teaching effectively. We can no longer pigeon hole kids in special education and second language learners. Learning should be fluid and based on a continuum of learning. Special education laws have become bastardized and check boxes rather than effective practice for students with disabilities. I recommend Reading Educational REHAB: An Unprecedented Opportunity to Restore K-12 Public Education as a starting point that outlines the overhaul that will be required. I would also recommend a nation-wide round-table discussion with these types of leaders, especially that left public education because many of the most effective and heartfelt ones left. I would also recommend reading 100 No-Nonsense Things that All School Leaders Should STOP Doing, and 100 No-Nonsense Things that ALL Teachers should STOP Doing. Additionally, most state boards of education are corrupt. By giving the power back to the states this will not fix it. State departments of education must be gutted and in the trench effective education leaders should be sitting on the boards offering systems of total reconstruction through transparency. I experienced this firsthand and in-depth example of district and state corruption can be read in Escaping the School Leaders Dunk Tank. All titles regarding school reform (in-depth) can be found on my website: www.rebeccacoda.com under the SCHOOL REFORM tab. I gave over 20 years working in Title 1 schools, Leadership Roles including Director of Curriculum and Instruction. I made massive impact within the locus of my control, but there were alway massive limitation in laws, policies, and corruption of politics of people in leadership roles. After Covid hit, I abandoned education because it reached a point of no return and as a mother of 3 adopted special needs kids, it became a full-time job attending to their academic and behavioral needs that were negatively exacerbated by public education. It was high stress and demoralizing and I had no choice but to abandon my advocacy as a singular voice of high quality teaching and learning. I pray that you will read Educational REHAB as it outlines a community approach to fixing the problem and uniting everyone through a community approach of long-term efficacy and belonging. Life is the most meaningful test and this is why we must give it our BEST! I pray this forum is truly in it for total reform. All the policies listed in this forum would all fit under the larger umbrella of a system-wide systemic model of total reform. We left no stone unturned. Thank you for considering reforming the entity that creates all workers in America.
Local schools should have local control of how and what students learn. There is a grossly bloated public education system which accepts federal and state funding which dictates rules and regulations for all the grant recipients. Parents of the community should have freedom to actively shape the education of their children. Under the current system, there are far too many limitations placed by funding requirements.
Our local school district works with a $48milion dollar budget with an enrollment of less than 1,700 students for the entire district. The quality of education provided is shockingly low when compared to the insanely high budget the district has to work with. However, parents have little to no control to effect change, due to grant funding requirements.
The balance of control over education currently is held by state and federal agencies where they have centralized authority over every child. Teachers unions and other like influencers have more authority over what a child learns than a parent does. This is the fundamental building block which is required to truly reform our education system, remove the leverage federal and state government have over our children’s education.