Concerned about the state of education in San Antonio, Mayor Hardberger did what any good politician would do and formed the 2006 Summit on Education and Workforce Development. And this summit did what any good summit does and recommended as priority number one the formation of a council, the P16Plus Council. More on that in a moment.
In his 2007 State of the City Address, the mayor describes this summit:
Last June, I convened a Summit on Education and Workforce Development. Over 300 leaders in education, business, and government met for the first time in one room…
Notably absent are the two groups most affected by any resolutions: parents and students. Why do so many so willingly hand over the planning of children’s education to the educational establishment, businesses and government? Each has a larger stake in its own interests than in those of families and children. Yet many do not seem to be able to look past the titles and degrees to question whose interests are really being served.
…to set forth our common, community expectations on education…
Community expectations? What about the individual’s goals? Children do not go to school to serve the community’s goals, but their own. The community is best served when each individual is best able to meet his fullest expression, not when his innate talents and interests are muted or directed to meet the goals and expectations of the community.
They agreed on some 40 different strategies and goals for improvement. And they agreed that our actions must be bold, and they must be swift.
The first of which apparently was this P16Plus Council, set to be unveiled in the near future. Details are not yet available, but it refers to an educational pipeline covering children from pre-K to college, including any workforce training.
The concept of an “educational pipeline” is part of a nationwide trend to form a more “productive, integrated system of high schools, colleges and universities.” San Antonio appears to be taking it a step further, integrating right down to pre-K in the true spirit of cradle-to-grave educational planning.
Interestingly, the original summit included a work session on Pre-natal to Pre-K.
The ultimate goal is to better prepare young people for success in college or in the workplace. San Antonio Business Journal
And that leads me to an important question. What is the purpose of education? We seem to have conflicting goals, right from the start. “College” or “the workplace.” These are two very different tracks in their own right, and yet neither really encompasses all that education should be. Bonnie Kavoussi, a high school student who had the opportunity to attend the Summit (the only one under 20), made an interesting observation on the goals discussed in the summit.
Regrettably, the ideal of a more vibrant democracy was not even mentioned after Paredes’ speech. The final statements focused on building work skills, not a general liberal arts education. Although preparing students for the real world is essential, just as essential is teaching students the importance of learning for its own sake. MySA.com
When Thomas Jefferson described his plan of a general education system in a letter to John Tyler, its purpose was not to make sure students were adequately prepared for the workforce, nor so that colleges would not have to teach remedial reading courses to incoming freshmen. It was “to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom.” He recognized that without this, no republic could survive.
Indeed, true education consists not of memorizing facts, but of seeking the truth. No matter what discipline we study, rather than blindly believe what our textbooks say, we must remember to read between the lines. It is essential for instructors to teach students not what is on some standardized test, but to question authority. In my opinion, if students come out of high school knowing one thing alone, that should be to always ask questions. Ibid.
Unfortunately, those with a stake in determining the “community expectations” for the education of youth are not considering the “preservation of liberty” as an important goal. They are wholly focused on preparing laborers for competition in the global economy.
Hat Tip to Education and Homeschool News, for the link to Kavoussi’s reaction to the Summit.
[tags]homeschool, eduction, P16Plus[/tags]
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Educational pipeline? It sounds more like an educational conveyor belt. What happens when the fully manufactured student gets to the end? Does someone on the committe stamp his forehead with “approved” or “rejected”?
I’m going to quit reading your articles so early in the morning, the veins in my neck shouldn’t have to take the strain so early and I have work to go do before I can properly vent.
Actually, LOTP, you are close. Enter the system as early as 6 weeks (forget universal pre-K…I’m already leery of Even Start). Get your card that keeps all your information, including grades, attendance and teacher notes about you.
KidTrax Seamless integration, from cradle to college…but it doesn’t stop there. Our Secretary of Education has been working hard on higher ed and one of the proposals is a tracking system that will follow you to the workforce so that we can see the return on our investment and more effectively hold colleges accountable for how prepared you are for the workforce.
So yeah, manufacturing students along the conveyor belt is a pretty accurate analogy.
As a parent and educator I have always felt it was very important to raise and educate children to be productive mebers of society. I have always believed that if they are not responsible, productive members of society they will become a burden upon it.
That being siad, I have to say the only statement that you quoted that I think was well said was that of the student! She seemed to grasp the situation better than any of the educators, business people or government officials. What does that say!
And I wholly agree, parents and students should have been included in that summit…but I have often found (in my District, at least) that when parents are invited, it is announced within the school community and the only parents made aware are those very involved with the school: PTA officials, parent volunteers beyond class mom who comes in once a week for a few hours, etc. So even then, the conversation is still a closed one in my eyes as many of us average parents are never included, even when education and our children are very dear to our hearts.
And the whole pre-k thing really bothers me, so I won’t even comment on that. I wish all children could stay at home until their 7th birthdays like is so common in many European contries.
Great post!
Shawna, I agree that we need to raise “productive members of society.” Training for the workforce is an important component of education. It just isn’t the only goal, and we are treating education as if it were nothing but job training.
Dana, I think this educator’s scholarly paper published by Columbia U’s Teachers College would interest you, examining the three conflicting purposes of education:
“Why Education is So Difficult and Contentious”
“If we want to improve our schools, it is with the abstract and awkward realm of ideas that we must first deal.
. . .The particular combination of these ideas that we deploy, governs what we do in schools and what we do to children in the name of education.
Our problems are due to these three ideas each being fatally flawed and being also incompatible with one other.”
Interesting thoughts. Some “off the cuff” thoughts of my own. : )
Is it really that these goals are truly incompatible, or that we are applying them wrong, expecting an institution to do something that it cannot do? According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, education has four purposes:
1) to enlighten the understanding
2) to correct the temper
3) form the manners and habits of youth
4) fit them for usefulness in their future stations.
To relate this to the article you linked to, the first would deal with this external body of knowledge, 2 and 3 would loosely deal with “socialization” and 4 would perhaps have to do with facilitating the student’s potential. At least is speaks directly to the posted entry’s focus on workforce preparation.
If you take this broader view of what education is, more closely related to the German concept of “Erziehung” which is more commonly translated as “bringing up” and relates directly to the Latin roots of the English word, “education” has to do with the entire process of “bringing up” a child.
All of these aspects are critically important.
The real problem doesn’t really lie in conflicting goals, but in the conflicting interests of those who have control over the process.
At one time, the goals of education were somewhat unified between the home, church and school, giving rise to an education “system” with few real conflicts. Ironically, as our society has diversified, our education system has been increasingly centralized, hoping to achieve through this some sort of standardization of beliefs across cultures.
One goal of education was taken out of its familial context and placed in an institution with competing goals.
Unfortunately, it appears that this blog has stopped being updated, but there is a wealth of information in it from its brief history:
http://sixthcolumn.typepad.com/cubedseducationblog/
I haven’t finished reading all the entries, yet, but it is worth starting at the beginning and working your way through.
Just to clarify, productive members of society are not just workforce resources to me. Productive members of society serve more realms than the workforce and I think that often gets lost in the mix.