How To Fix American Education by PBS

                On April 15th PBS did a segment called: “Need to Know: How to Fix American Education.”  The premise of the segment was to highlight the conference on the Celebration of Teaching and Learning that was held in New York.  PBS touted this conference as a meeting of the “best minds of Education and Policy makers.”

                In the beginning narrative of the segment which presented the discussants, I immediately noticed there is a segment of people missing from the discussion and an expertise that was also missing.  The discussants, which ranged from prominent (Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond) to up and coming (Timothy Daily) briefly discussed their ideas on how to fix American Education.  While the discussants had some good ideas on how to fix American Education, there was no new or innovative ideas given that would begin the process of getting our educational system on the right track.

                Missing from the discussants were educators who actually have created successful educational environments.  Educators such as Marva Collins who founded the Westside Preparatory School in Chicago and gained notoriety for taking failing students, increasing their academic achievement, and getting them into college.  Also missing from the discussants was Geoffrey Canada, the founder, President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone which serves 10,000 students over 100 blocks, with 90% of those students going onto post-secondary educational programs.  The absence of veteran, grassroots educators who have demonstrated the ability to educate children who previously struggled in the public education system and turn them into college bound students are virtually absent from the discussion.  The PBS segment showed that the country remains interested in theorizing the fixing of education in America instead of providing solutions to transform public education. 

It is time the country begins to take a solutions oriented approach to public education and develop an educational policy that transforms public education into a viable entity that provides students with a world class education.  Our leadership has to move past excluding proven educators, superintendents, teachers, students, and parents from the discussions about how to fix public education.  The individuals who deal with the problems plaguing education on a daily basis have a wealth of resources that are underutilized.  Public education can no longer afford to have its policies developed by individuals whose children have never attended public schools, who base their opinions about public education on statistics and research, and are not familiar with the daily challenges facing schools, teachers, and students.

The How to Fix American Education segment by PBS unfortunately added to the theoretical approach to the problems facing public education at a time when public education in a recession economy needs solutions.