As I have written elsewhere, children must be prepared to become individuals who can realize and then maintain a participatory democratic social order.
Below the fold, you’ll find our 15 point plan for realizing a system of "public" education that has the potential to help communities implement curricula more favorable to life, liberty, community, and happiness.
I’d love to hear how this plan complements the work of your preferred candidate.
15 Steps Toward an Alternate Educational Universe and a Healthier Society
* Plan and implement a formalized national dialogue on the purposes and aims of public schools in a democratic republic.
* Rebuild the teaching profession by seeking the partnership of teachers in the shared goal of democratic living, economic autonomy, and creative problem solving.
* Recognizing that there is no single best approach that fits every learning context, encourage local choice in deciding curriculums and instructional strategies that are grounded in best practices as defined by teachers, researchers, and the professional associations that represent various disciplines.
* Offer research and professional development incentives for teacher education programs to work directly with principals, teachers, and students in schools.
* Offer funds to support universal mentoring for teacher candidates who are required to complete yearlong internships.
* Require elementary education majors to have an additional major in a liberal arts discipline.
* Build assessment systems with local and national components that use multiple measures and multiple methods, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach that fits no one.
* Build assessment systems that assess understanding, application, and factual knowledge for personal growth and future economic success, rather than simply measuring the retention of desiccated facts that are irrelevant to prospering in the 21st Century.
* Rather than defining academic expectations so that the majority of the disenfranchised, the weak, and the poor are sure to fail, build assessment systems that measure progress over time and that match resources with expectations for the special challenges to disabled, immigrant, and poor children.
* Develop a focused school ecosystem intent on building and nurturing the intellectual, civic, physical, and emotional health of children.
* Establish interstate education communications and data links that encourage mutual assistance and shared responsibility among states and municipalities, rather than encouraging districts and teachers to keep successful strategies behind closed doors in order to win the competition for higher salaries.
* Make improvement to struggling schools an integral part of family and community infrastructure, support and rebuilding, rather than pretending that student development and school achievement are independent of family income and community health.
* Support efforts aimed at ethnic, religious, and economic integration, rather than spending tax dollars on testing schemes that serve as incentives for economic segregation.
* Base school funding decisions on addressing the needs of the least advantaged before rewarding those who have demonstrated that they are the least in need of extra resources.
* Rather than funding school privatization efforts with vouchers and EMOs, fully fund public schools and support public school choice within and beyond district boundaries.