N E T w o r k                  february  2007  vol. 1, no.2

Hello, NET Members! A lot has happened since you received our first edition of NETwork. Because we are a bottom-up group whose directors see ourselves as facilitators, your answers to the expertise question shaped our committees. Your answers to the concerns question created our agenda. On the home front, the NET’s “office” should soon move out of the art studio behind my house and into a real office in TTU’s College of Education (COE)—assistants, computers, desks, everything. The NET owes the COE a great debt for its unflagging support of our effort. Our website will soon have its own spot on the Internet, and last but not least, we have received full funding from the Texas Tech provost and the COE for our first annual AERA business meeting and reception— Chicago, April 9-13. The reception will be our coming out party, so bring your friends.

We are probably months away from the NCLB reauthorization debate, but there is no time to be lost. The NET will soon move from organization to research. We will be fully engaged in our proposal phase, and well prepared for the debate, when it does begin.

I posted an editorial below that offers my vision of public education. To establish our national footprint and heighten public awareness of our concerns, I will submit it to a major print media outlet. The NCLB debate will be decided in the hearts and minds of voting constituencies more than by the NET’s direct contact with Congress, so we must put a great deal of effort into reaching the People. The editorial outlines a general vision that I will follow with another on NCLB. Please give me your feedback.

Our agenda
Your responses to the “What are your greatest concerns?” query were interesting. Student assessment was the hot button. Some of you mentioned specific aspects (with NCLB quite high) and others referred to it in general terms, but nine out of ten of you mentioned it. In second place were teacher preparation and assessment. Again, you submitted a blend of the specific and the general. Funding issues placed third and diversity concerns placed fourth. Also receiving mention were ethics, educational policy, curriculum concerns, improvement in specific disciplines, pre- and after-school programs, access to college, alternatives to college prep programs, class size, ELL, the dropout rate, and research-based education. All of these are worthy causes and deserve spots on our agenda. In 2007 we will focus largely on student assessment, particularly NCLB. Following that we will turn our attention to other matters. Our agenda is flexible so members can raise other issues at any time.

the NET’s committees
The chart below states where our committees stand as of this writing: They are in mid-process. As mentioned in the January NETwork, the Chairs constitute the NET’s Advisory Board. Chairs are free, but not required, to create their own advisory committees, organized as they wish and containing as many members as they wish. The committees are to be titled according to this format: The National Education Taskforce Committee on (fill in the blank).

Committee members report to their Chairs, not to me. Committee members do not need to be approved by me—I selected outstanding members of the education field to join the NET and I trust your judgments. To maintain orderly records, I ask that committee recruits not present themselves as members of the NET until after their Chairs have given me the recruits’ contact information and I have acknowledged receipt.

Our membership at present is heavy on expertise in student assessment, teacher preparation, and the myriad areas of diversity. Consequently I have asked some of you to lend your secondary areas of expertise to the NET’s committee structure. Thank you for so graciously agreeing. The tables show our gaps. Please inform me if you identify any areas that should be added, and please recommend good people who are qualified to fill the gaps. (I ask that each recommended person be someone on whom you would stake your reputation.) You also are welcome to volunteer for any slot for which you feel qualified. You are welcome to serve on more than one committee. Several committees’ areas overlap those of others. We encourage cross-pollination. The NET will be most successful if it is built on individual relationships, so please contact each other.

CATEGORIES and TITLES             

Organizational levels

Early childhood/elementary
Ginley (chair), Cowhey

Middle schools
Hlebowitsh (chair)

High schools
Davis (chair), Denson, Wood

Higher and international education
Freiberg (chair)

Educational leadership

Academics

Arts
Bode (chair), Bolin, Gelber

Bilingual/ELL
Crawford, Valenzuela

English & reading

Foreign languages & social studies

Physical education
Pennington (chair)

Math & science

Special education
Meisgeier (chair), Kenneally

Instructional technology
Fehr, M. (chair)

Policy concerns

Curriculum & Instruction

Gender

GLBT
Jensen (chair)

Learning styles

Race and ethnicity
Munoz (chair), Gay, Orfield

Student assessment
Berliner

Teacher preparation & assessment
Irvine (chair), Nieto

Great schools, great nation
Here is my editorial. Again, I welcome feedback. Lengthwise it probably is pushing the maximum for an editorial page, but I can replace portions with other material.

WHY TODAY’S SCHOOLS WILL NOT MEET
TOMORROW’S NEEDS
Dennis Fehr, Director
The National Education Taskforce

The core school subjects of the 1950s—math, reading, science and social studies—might have sufficed for that decade, but they have become increasingly inadequate since then. Today's children will need to know more than how to work on the farm or in the factory. Driven in part by the global spread of digital and nuclear technology, India, the European Union, and the People's Republic of China are poised to level the world’s economic playing field. The Middle East, the Pacific Rim, and other formerly Third World countries are leveling it politically.

In other words, the United States has issues. Left unchecked over the next ten years, they will become problems, and in another ten they could be catastrophes. Yet U. S. schools are preparing our kids for this new world with a half-century-out-of-date core curriculum. We seem slow to realize that by 2020, U. S. workers who speak only one language will be disadvantaged not only around the world but here at home. The Romance languages, which have dominated foreign language study in our high schools, are—with the notable exception of Spanish—going to be less helpful to tomorrow’s worker in a globally de-centered marketplace than Mandarin, Arabic, or Japanese. And despite our growing penchant for eating and TV-watching ourselves to early graves, we still do not require every child to have daily physical education—and I do not mean recess. Nor do I mean “roll out the basketballs” PE. I mean physical education that not only offers organized exercise, but also teaches human physiology, drug education, safe and responsible sexual behavior, sound diet, stress management, and team play. The literature linking physical fitness with intellectual performance is clear; the problem is that the education field’ powerbrokers have not read it.

And the arts are still not core subjects. In math every student needs to answer “twenty-five” when asked “What’s five times five?” Every student of English needs to come up with the same word when asked, “What is the subject of the sentence?” On the other hand, if we give 20 art students the same problem, they will produce twenty different answers. We have twenty times the number of solutions from which to choose the best. For years the private sector has complained that our schools do not graduate innovative problem-solvers; yet we do not require arts education in every grade. Can outside-the-box thinking that develops in arts classes contribute nothing to international economics and diplomacy? Do the imaginings of those who become visionaries through arts study contribute nothing to human progress? The nation whose workforce has the greatest imagination, creativity, innovation, and vision will control tomorrow's global market. Which nation corners that market remains to be seen, but we do know it will be the one that most diligently fosters the arts.

Of course we should retain the original core subjects, but we must add to them—on equal footing—second languages, physical education, and the arts. And let us not forget technology—it has become so pervasive that it should be woven throughout every school subject rather than taught in a special class. Mere digital text-booking is not acceptable. Our teachers must teach our children what technology can do within their subjects that could not be done before. This does not mean that technology should be viewed uncritically. Discarded computers pose an environmental threat, and the sociological import of having closer relationships with computers than with family members is only beginning to be understood.

Last, and most important of all, is ethics. If our national civility is in decline, if our elected officials, at even the highest levels, disgrace our country with their moral lapses (and we have seen this from both political parties in recent decades), why do we not teach our students ethical principles as they relate to their school subjects? How does one conduct scientific research ethically? And when has science been used to do harm? How has language been used as a wedge for dividing people? How can language help bring us closer? As we depend more on images and less on text to convey information, how can art class help children learn to filter the good from the bad on TV, the Internet and in their favorite magazines? How can PE class teach children to work together, another critical component of success in a global economy? What can community outreach projects teach kids about social studies? These approaches to ethics do not require the teaching of religion in schools, since all great religions agree that we should be compassionate, humble, honest and forgiving.

We can postpone teaching these things until we have fallen behind, at which point we will be forced to teach them (with no guarantee of success), or we can start teaching them now and maintain a secure place in the family of nations.

Contacting our Congressional representatives
How is your relationship with your district representative developing? Each NET member needs not only to initiate this relationship, but to maintain it with periodic contact. The NET’s argument on the testing question is going to be quite powerful and you could be the means by which a resistant representative changes his or her vote. One of the most important tasks you can perform for improving the school experiences of tens of millions of children is this one.

Until next time

Please send me:

     Your recommendations of people who can fill out our committee roster.
     Your comments on my editorial.

Committee chairs, I need:
     Your recruited members’ highest degrees, the institutional affiliations, professional titles and, if applicable, their website URLs. I also need their emails and phone numbers.

And please, everyone:

     Continue to work on your relationship with your House representative.

     Get to know your fellow NET members.

Let’s catch all those children left behind.

Warm regards,

Dennis