This is typed on my phone. Forgive any typos.
Ednet keynote speaker: Bob Wise, alliance for excellent education, former governor of West Virginia.
The big challenge for education is that at end of high school years, 6 of 10 ninth graders will not be prepared to function in society, dropouts or lack of schools, this skills gap is growing. We can't change that picture until we change what we are doing.
In 1972, 70% of our workforce had a HS education or less and the. Economy was humming. Today, 60% of our population has at least some postsecondary education, and we know that's not enough.
We are at a GM moment: for a long time, their product wasn't that good, but they were still okay until they ran out of money a year or two ago. That's what we face in education today.
We don't have the pipeline, we don't have the infrastructure for what education needs.
State revenues will stagnate for education for the next several years. It will take several years to get back to where we were 3 years ago.
50% of teachers are over 50 years old. We're not going to get enough qualified teachers in the country.
Opportunity
80% of people will be under new governors, they will be appointing new education directors, how will they find put what they should be doing, how are you going to communicate with them.
Adoption of common core standards. That's the beginning: what do we do about curriculum development, teacher development, assessment?
Massive congressional turnover at a time with massive education policy decisions, how are you going to inform them? ESEA has to reauthorized and will be changed. NCLB does not meet today's needs, one big debate is going to be over guaranteed or competitive funding. 22 happy senators (winners of tttt) and 78 grumpy ones, which ones are more likely to vote for competitive funding?
Congressmen will react to what they've actually seen and who they've met.
The big focus on statewide data systems is going to be crucial to change and improvement.
Strategies
70% of public has no connection to school system, the challenge is to let them know that the local hs or school system has a direct effect on their lives.
Three Maxims
1 at end of day, 10 PhDs are trumped by one state legislator. Make sure that state person understands enough to make a good decision
2 There are two places where most operant decisions for educations are made. In the Classroom, teachers are making millions of decisions every day. Ultimately major decisions are made by elected officials: budget, policy, funding, etc.
3 tech development always outpaces policy development.