Congress chose winners and losers in the $2 trillion stimulus package. Considering the big winners and losers reveals priorities in a panic.
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Most education dollars in Illinois are paid out under contracts negotiated in secret. To improve public education, the same openness rules American expect of open participatory democracy needs to be applied to smoke-filled backroom board-union negotiations.
The two greatest impediments to transforming education come from the public. Public opinion needs to change in two areas to open the floodgates and radically improve schooling for children. The public needs to embrace the idea that the schools of the future will not look like the schools of the past, and the economics of education need to escape partisan politics.
The Illinois pension crisis is only part of the story. Funding for Illinois schools affects students profoundly.
Before considering whether to leave teaching and take a role in the administration, teachers need to learn an important lesson about indemnification.
Education needs to be untethered from measuring success based on how long students spend in a chair. But the same logic applies to people working in schools. Top talent values being allowed to work at a time, place, path and pace of their choosing. Schools need to remember to untether its employees as well as its students.
The right size of a school the smallest size necessary to ensure it achieves its mission. To be at the right size, leaders need clear answers to two questions. First, what is the school's purpose? Second, how do we know if we're being productive? Until purpose and productivity are defined, schools will always be bloated or baby-sized.
The public and private education sectors need to talk more, and trust more.
It's time for the US to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.