Should we continue to allow all educational facilities to create their own missions?
Should we have a national mission?
Should we have a "model" national mission statement?
What happens to the local control of education?
Should we continue to have local control of education?
Is the division of control of our schools part of the problem?
I pose questions because I truly believe that in order to solve a problem, one must clearly define the problem in such a way that all the participants agree with the definition. It's the problem-solution method I teach my students.
When we can accurately define the problem, we will be able to start analyzing it so that we can propose solutions.
I believe we have been proposing solutions without truly defining the problem. At best, we have been getting spotty success stories and trying to analyze them so that we can apply the results to the problem.
While I believe NCLB, charter schools, alternative schools, and other at-risk programs are addressing some areas of the overall problem, we need to make use of current research and clearly define the entire problem. Then we need to define the categories of the problem and clearly use the methods that have worked to solve those problems. We also need to see which categories have not been clearly researched and expend the manpower and financial resources to complete the task expediently. Then we need to analyze what needs to be done to solve the remaining categorical problems.
This discussion is part of the definition of the problem stage. Thanks to those who bear with me. (This definition stage is also the stage my students want to skip or to gloss over.) Once we agree, we can begin to address the overall problem by looking at the questions I posed in a different reply.
Posted as a reply to:
Success of Mission by Roger W. Bourassa
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