What I am grateful for: There are so many people in the world, who work against the odds and make this world a better place. Michelle Montas, Columbia Journalism class of 69 has been working in Haiti for years for Human Rights. In the process, her husband was assassinated and she was exiled for years. She is now back, still making a difference.
EDUCATION CRISIS: A TOWN FORUM
www.houstonpbs.org/haveyoursay/education/index.html
This is the link to the Education Crisis town forum. We felt once we do these programs which generally take 4 months to produce, we hope we have done our job which I read somewhere is best described as follows.
"OUR JOB IS NOT TO MAKE UP ANYONE'S MIND BUT TO MAKE THE AGONY OF INDECISION SO INTENSE THAT THOUGHT IS THE ONLY ESCAPE"
Whether you think public education needs reform or not, the fact is nations who don't focus enough resources in education, eventually pay an economic and social price. Although there is apparently a link to how much rich countries spend per capita and student outcomes, no one can deny as a nation we have to learn to do more with less, become more innovative and begin looking at what schools are working and why. After we finished our live one hour show, we taped an extra half hour to talk about solutions to the educational crisis. (We call it a crisis based on the drop out rate and the challenge high school students face once they graduate because they are not prepared for college coursework.)
We began the half hour with three things international Educational Consultant Bill Daggett said he would do about Texas Public Schools.
1. Our standards in Texas are too low compared to higher standards in the rest of the country.
2. Find best practices out there and share them with the rest of the state.
3. You need sustained professional development of your teachers and staff across the state.
Here are some other solutions shared in the program
1. Todd Litton of Citizen schools "KIPP and YES charter schools are having a great impact on education and HISD increasing the number of days (15 days) to several schools in the district. "One of the things we do at Citizen schools is work on expaninding the time that our children have to really learn throughout the day."
2. Scott Van Beck A challenge "Relationships and Relevance matter to our kids." I think we all know what we need to do. We have to have the will power to do it.
3. Barbara Paige Management Leadership who works with public schools kids who do well in school, recognizes the imporance of connecting them with corporate partners and teaching them leadership skills.
4. Dr. Archie Blanson Deputy Superintendent for Aldine School District which won the 2009 Broad Foundation Award for their innovative work in education said "We look at every individual child in the campus and tailor their educational need and our curriculum and instruction. We don't have a cooke cutter, canned program for all children. "
5. Richard Farias Raul Izabuirre Charter School. Charter schools have helped the public education system. "The charter schools are smaller and and are able to provide much closer attention to each and every child." That's what these kids need. "It is a myth that parents don't care about their child's education. Parents do care.
These are just some of the solutions suggested. I will have a complete list of solutions in our website soon. Check www.houstonpbs.org/haveyoursay/education.html
Beth Dennard is the guest of our upcoming Living Smart show This coming sunday at 3pm. Since my niece is going to college soon and I saw how very stressed she is about it. I felt Dr. Dennard could walk so many parents and student through the college admissions process. It is much more complicated than it was when I graduated from high school. This Thursday night at 10pm John Bradshaw, the PBS personal growth expert talks about moral intelligence. If interested in Living Smart shows, please go to You Tube and type Living Smart. See what comes up.
This past week. I went to my Columbia journalism school reunion. All I can say is that I loved meeting my classmates and walking the streets of New York. The presentations I enjoyed the most were what will happen to our industry (nobody really knows), digital and social media and how certain beats have been covered. We all recognized how lucky were were to spend one intensive year in New York with the best journalism professors in the country. If you are interested in this school, let me know.
1 comment:
You mentioned it took four months to produce your program. Can you tell me if you anticipate doing anymore programs in the future? Would you consider doing a new town hall on another topic?
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