Independence Community College recently hosted a TEDx event and I was honored to be an invited speaker. TEDx Programs are created in the spirit of TED‘s mission, “ideas worth spreading” and are designed to help communities, organizations and individuals to spark conversation and connection through local TED-like experiences.
“Rethinking Education Tomorrow Starts with Understanding Outcomes Today” explores the realities of student achievement in Kansas and poses three questions:
- Are student outcomes in Kansas acceptable today?
- If not, do you believe outcomes will soon be acceptable if we just let things play out at their current pace?
If your answer to either of the first two questions is ‘yes,’ then it stands to reason that you’d want to keep everything in place that has brought outcomes to the current level. But if you believe the future of education requires transformational change, you have to carefully answer this really hard question:
3. Will you resist intense pressure from the education system and demand change?
If you ask the education system to change, you’ll quickly learn that that’s not taken kindly. The pressure to back off can be intense, so you have to decide how important the future of education is to you. And you have to ‘own’ your decision. Local school boards and state legislators only do what you allow them to do. If you believe change is needed but don’t clearly communicate that with your elected officials, you have to assume ownership of your failure to act. The future of education is really in your hands.
