Return to the Little Red Schoolhouse – or – Whose Education is this Anyway?

What is wrong with public education? The question is continuously asked across the nation. Local, state, federal governments and outside organizations continually address the issue. Education is a hot bed issue with no firm answers. The crisis in public education has been called the greatest domestic issue Americans face today. Failing test scores, poor reading, math, and science skills, high dropout rates, teacher frustration, and disconnected students are among the symptoms enveloping public educational systems.

Public education is constantly discussed and scrutinized while more and more taxpayer dollars are poured into ineffective systems. Everyone from the President down to the man or woman on the street seems to have an opinion. Unfortunately, as educational issues are bantered about, there seems to very little effective change occurring. Charter schools, increased testing with resultant accountability, increased funding, revolving reading and math programs, increased scrutiny by those outside the institution of education has done very little to alter the dynamics of schools or their success; especially inner city schools.

With all the increased attention paid to education, the only place people refuse to look for answers is the inner sanctum of education itself. Education ultimately consists of students and teachers. As school systems have expanded, growing ever larger and larger, students and teachers have become secondary to the needs of the educational system itself. Few seem to recognize or care what the true caretakers of education want or need. Few seem to understand students and teachers have become bit players on the grand stage of everyone else’s version of what education should be.

My upcoming book Return to the Little Red Schoolhouse - or – Whose Education Is This Anyway is an insider’s view of the problems besetting public education from the perspective of an inner city school teacher. It speaks to the necessity of taking a long look at the alterations to public school systems and how outside intervention and constant ineffective scrutiny has robbed schools of its purpose and mission. Bill Gates in his first "annual letter" and after years of investing in charter schools through the Gates Foundation came to the conclusion "small schools did not improve students' achievement scores in any significant way." He went on to add, "If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than a great school."

Return to the Little Red Schoolhouse reveals the changes and problems shaping and defining the transformation of students living in a fast paced, digital society and why schools have been slow to react to meet the challenges and changes. The book outlines a tangible plan for returning education back to the only people who can effectively understand the challenges and thereby effect meaningful change. The book in conjunction with this website asks teachers, students, parents, and those vested in education to stand forth and let their voices be heard and demand changes to the way education is currently executed.

Order your book: Return to the Little Red Schoolhouse – or – Whose Education Is This Anyway.