Don’t Be Afraid of Betsy DeVos
From Our Executive Director, Jacqueline Hicks (February 2017 Newsletter):
Consider:
- Much has been wrong about our education system, long before DeVos became our Secretary of Education.
- Less than 10% of the money for public education comes from the federal government.
- Best to focus on what WE ALL can do to make our local schools great.
- Start by looking at what teachers, parents, and students know works and do that.
- Think global and act local – start with your local school board and your school’s PTA.
My time as an education reformer began in 1997 with California’s Charter School Movement well underway. As a parent of a very unhappy 7th grader, my husband and I had to face the fact that our local public school was not meeting our needs or those of our young son. My husband with his lifetime California teaching credential had a very good idea of what makes a classroom a quality learning environment. Fortunately, we found a new, innovative, charter middle school that fit us to a T. I became a very involved parent and I learned what best practices, small class size, project based learning, field work, portfolios, understanding learning style differences, and integrating subjects around a yearlong theme could do for my son’s happiness and success in school.
Taking what I was learning at the charter school and combining it with my knowledge of and experience with the Person-Centered Approach (gained largely at the Center for Studies of the Person founded by Dr. Carl R. Rogers and colleagues), I developed a leadership curriculum for middle and high school students. I then went on to start, with my friend and partner Linda Reed, Cortez Hill Academy charter middle and high school. Our foundation […]