Conversation on Education

Yesterday I was in attendance with many others at the 6th Conversation on Education with Governor Ted Strickland. I was honored to have been one of those "invited" and was glad to hear the discussion about this important topic in our State.

If you want to see the "conversation" online, you can check it out by clicking here.

It was an interesting afternoon despite a real philosophical problem I have with the process. You see, the session started out by telling us that we were not there to discuss funding. Rather, we needed to discuss ideas here...and the funding discussion would come later.

Okay...

See the problem with that is it is impossible to really discuss education reform in Ohio without discussing funding. You see, the education our children gets has not been deemed unconstitutional...the way we fund it has! And with 34 levies on the ballot in Ohio during the last election (most of those failed)you can make the case our schools are in financial crisis. So right away, I (and I think many others in the room) was frustrated.

That being said, there were some interesting ideas thrown out. Here are just a couple:

1) Having a year round school calendar.
2) Doing more interdisciplinary study between classes
3) Develop a personal education plan for every student...

...and many more.

So there were some really interesting ideas that were discussed. But unfortunately, many of them will take money. So please feel free to check out the video online. It's a discussion we need to have as a community.

But let's have the whole discussion. The time has truly come!