On Mon, 6 May 1996 00:17 David Wilkinson wrote -
> Recently, in response to my posting, Joan Pomo wrote
>
> > "For me, democracy is a terrible system whose alternatives are all much,
> much worse. For me, the school system is a problem, not a symptom and it
> scares me more to hear that an educational specialist such as you is
> looking for solutions to school problems outside of schools. In the
> business world, this means bankruptcy is just around the corner. Is there
> anything comparable for schools or do their employees just keep drawing
> their salaries no matter the results?"
>
> Joan, I believe the issues relating to education today are indeed rooted
> in larger societial. I truly believe attempts to solve our nation's need
> for responsible and productive citizens by focusing only on schools and
> ignoring related issues in society are shortsighted, and will not solve
> the overall problem.
I did not mean to imply that schools are the source of all of our
problems. Having a student for so many hours each day, they could
contribute to a solution for those individuals in a major way. Those which
I have seen firsthand in New York City are major contributors to the
problem rather than the solution. NYC is a great place to view all the
aspects of societal problems such as a welfare system which destroys whole
families and makes children into muggers and shooters at an early age.
Believe it or not, there are a very few schools who take these same
children and turn them into responsible members of society, schools which
have not taken the "oh, poor me, we are in the South Bronx and can't
succeed". The processes of destroying children and then rebuilding them
each seem to be a learned skill.
> For me and others in education, we are in a fight to survive as an
> institution. Studies would indicate that in most aspects, schools are
> doing better than ever. But that is not good enough. Many of us are
> trying to change schools in meaningful ways. My participation in the list
> and work assigned in school improvement (growth, development, learning
> community or whatever) is part of our search for solutions. Schools do
> have competition that could lead to bankruptcy -- open enrollment,
> vouchers, tuition credits, home schooling, charter schools (I will skip
> the politcal discussion of the pros and cons of each).
I am quite glad to hear that competition exists. Please let me know where
that is taking place. I had understood that there were no cases today and
that the NEA had been successful in squashing all but a very few very
small, insignificant cases. You used the words "could lead to bankruptcy".
Does that mean that this has never occurred and therefore is unbelievable?
Regards, Joan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joan Pomo The Finest Tools for Managing People
Simonton Associates Based on the book
jpomo@gate.net "How to Unleash the Power of People"
--"jpomo@gate.net" <jpomo@gate.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>