There is a Better Way, and Together
We Can Make It Happen

In this era of the worldwide web, the success of grassroots efforts like the One campaign, and even the wild ride of the 2008 Presidential campaign, each individual voice can be heard, and the voices of many working toward the same goal can have a positive effect in the world.

What could be more important than having a positive effect on the education of all of our children?  The truth is that we do not have to accept the status quo, especially when we know that so many of our kids are not being served by the overburdened bureaucracies that our public schools have become.  We deserve better, our kids deserve better, the teachers deserve better--and the future is waiting to see what we will do.

	What Can Each of Us Do Right Now? Elevate the level of debate about public education, moving away from narrow interests and toward large-scale and transformative solutions (see “Exploding the Paradigm,” the FREE REPORT on the School Reform page, for more ideas ). Find out more about Schools of the Future and what our most talented researchers and education pioneers have to say (see additional links below). Speak up for an end to adversarial attitudes and a beginning to the kind of synergy that can make real change in real institutions--parents, teachers, students and policymakers working together! Send your name and ideas to Patricia Kokinos via this site.  When we can demonstrate intelligent and broad support for large-scale change, we will find the help and financing to put forth our own grassroots campaign to change the schools.  This is only the beginning!

Here are more resources to help us SPEAK UP!

A year ago, this is what researchers were saying about schools in California, and aren’t we all in the same boat, all across the country?  Study Calls for Major Overhaul of California Schools

Here’s an experimental school in Seattle that’s been going strong since its founding in 1970.  It’s about students learning not only knowledge but responsibility.  Isn’t that what it’s going to take to change the world?  Check out the Nova Project.

Deborah Meier, a pioneer and forty-year veteran of the small schools movement, is still going strong, telling it like it is all over the country.  Are we prepared to listen to her yet, on a national scale, and create positive, workable, small, and personalized schools for all of our kids?

With foundation funding, the Coalition for Essential Schools has been creating small, personalized learning environments for more than twenty years, following the groundbreaking work of Theodore Sizer.  Have we not yet reached critical mass to demand this kind of school for all of our kids, all over the country? 

And what about standardized testing and failing schools? See what the leading expert on teacher preparation, Linda Darling-Hammond, has to say about the effects of high stakes testing on the educational process.

Get a clear idea of the role public education plays in sustaining the concept and reality of democracy--plus numerous related articles and reports--at The Forum for Education and Democracy.

Finally, both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation have been very active in contributing money and expertise to school reform and both funding and recognizing small schools, more relevant schools, and schools that have made positive changes.

Despite their outstanding and inspirational work, however, the inertia of the public education system itself has been stronger than all efforts at productive change.  A year ago when he and Eli Broad invested $60 million in their Ed in ’08 campaign, Bill Gates was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “The lack of political and public will is a significant barrier to making dramatic improvements in school and student performance.”

Thus, when all is said and done, it is up to US, the people out here at the grassroots level, to join our voices and demand--loudly--the kind of public school system that meets the needs of every child and the new requirements of the information-rich 21st century.  Sign up here and let’s build the synergy to make our voices heard.

Read Angel Park for the inside story of what’s holding public education back.

Discover a new perspective on the school changes you want to make.