Wanted: Enlightened school/district administrators, education experts, influencers wanting to fix our education system.

No, this is not meant to be a joke -- it's meant to be a call to action. If you meet that criteria, and take that seriously, we want to talk with you because we can help.

I was inspired to write this post because I think it's time we got down to the business of actually doing something about our education system rather than continue down the predictable, yet ineffective path of finger-pointing, placing blame, and searching for external excuses for why education is not meeting the needs of our children.

What do I mean?  Well, here's a sample of the "reasons" for why education isn't working:

• School districts cite overly-restrictive teachers' unions for why they can't get fair teacher evaluation, hire good teachers/fire bad ones, keep salaries within reasonable levels, etc.
• Teachers' unions blame the districts for not providing better working conditions, pay, benefits to their teachers. They blame the states for "underfunding" education and keeping teachers' pay so low that they can't attract and retain qualified staff. (more...)

It's a been a year since I completed this research paper. I spent several months doing my own research, talking and corresponding with experts in the education field such as Liv Finne from the Washington Policy Center, Jon Rochkind of Public Agenda, Barry McCurdy of Institute of Clinical Training & Research, and many more. I owe them, and the many other sources cited in the paper, my great thanks. What came out of it was an honest and direct look at one of the root causes of many of the problems facing education today -- that of students who lack the social skills, emotional/character development and abilities to be successful in the classroom.

While the negative impacts of this problem are wide-spread, I chose to focus on only two specific areas: classroom productivity and teacher attrition.  The research paper is also specific to Washington State (my home state), but the information in it can easily be applied to any state in the nation, or extrapolated nationwide as I frequently do when speaking to education groups on this topic.

In the year since I completed the paper, I have spent many hours sharing the information privately and selectively to my local legislators, other education officials, and influential individuals.  I've been struggling with how to make this information more accessible, and it seems the time is right to offer it up to more public access.

You can read the paper's Executive Summary here -- there's also an area by which you can request to download the full copy of the paper.  I welcome your comments and feedback on this critical and grossly overlooked area.

Just in time for "Teacher Appreciation Week," Education Secretary Arne Duncan published an "Open Letter to America's Teachers."

After reading his letter, here's the response I posted in EdWeek's comments: 

The biggest problem in education -- all around -- and the one that is keeping teachers from doing the best they can is one that very few people are willing to address: the high percentage of teaching time that is lost due to disruptive, unruly, undisciplined students.

Classically, the "solution" is to insist that teachers have better classroom management skills, but that overlooks the other 1/2 of that equation: our students need to have the skills and character/emotional development that allows them to be "managed" in a classroom environment.

When teachers, all across the country, are losing between 25-50% or more of classroom time managing behavior -- not to mention other "related" problems such as bullying, teacher assaults, etc., it's no wonder they can't get the job done. Oh, and it also results in a $100 BILLION drain on the education budget nationwide, EVERY YEAR.

Recently, EducationWeek and others published the results of a study that showed broad-spectrum social skills education in the classroom resulted in an 11 percentile point gain in academic achievement, as well as other benefits like decreased discipline problems.  Yet, instead of focusing on this aspect of education, we scream that we need to better prepare our students by giving them more technology?  Heck, even the best technology will be useless if students aren't attentive, respectful, and willing to participate in learning.

For more on this, I encourage you to visit http://socialsmarts.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/education-ills-connecting-the-dots/

Mr. Education Secretary, if you truly want to do something to transform our ailing education system, I welcome a 15-minute chat with you.  This is not only good for teachers, it's good for our children and it's critical for our future.

- Corinne Gregory
www.corinnegregory.com
www.socialsmarts.com

Now, I doubt he'll take me up on it, but frankly, I'm tired of the teacher-bashing. Yes, ok, there are some really lousy teachers out there who are really only interested in getting tenure, making it retirement, and getting out.  But, you can say the same thing for any other profession: bankers, government workers, scientists, web programmers...there's good and bad in all of them.  (more...)