What could you do with a new perspective
on school change?

The longer we continue the endless debate about school reform and ignore the wonderful work that has been done by change agents, leaders, and researchers throughout the country and the world,  the more kids we lose  to apathy, to drugs, to a hyped-up superficial culture, to dangerous sex, to gangs, to prisons, to hate crimes, to poverty, to ignorance.

America cannot long survive that human loss, and the world cannot afford to lose that many potential changemakers.  The only question we need to ask is this:

How do we get out from under the complicated structures that time has built and get back to the business of face to face teaching and learning?

	Patricia Kokinos, author, speaker, and consultant for school change, believes that we can start by working together to share ideas, and to allow a new pattern of possibilities to emerge:  How do we begin to downsize the system?  How do we create more and smaller schools with the money we are already spending?  How do we give teachers the time to learn, experiment, and support each other in teams?  How do we provide a supportive “family” atmosphere for each student so the sense of belonging motivates learning? How do we help teachers “coach” academics by engaging students in projects that help them use information and skills in new ways?

• A speaker for teacher, parent, student, and community groups
• A consultant and coach for teachers, administrators, and parents working on school-change initiatives
• An advocate for small, personalized, responsive schools for all children

After 25 years of making change in schools--from curriculum, to systems, to whole school restructuring--Patricia Kokinos is convinced that piecemeal changes are not the answer, and neither are the multitude of add-on programs that attempt to shore up an antiquated system.   The quantum leap that our schools need to make is from the traditional structure that everyone in America has passed through over the past century to a new vision of schooling that incorporates what we have learned from school change research, experiments, and demonstrations over the past 40 years.   Noel Wilson, an Australian educator and researcher, probably sums up the heart of the debate most succinctly (Education Policy Analysis Archives):

"To assert that the best way for children to learn is to sit them down at desks in a teacher dominated classroom containing thirty or forty other children and change to a different topic every forty minutes is to deny most of what we know about the variety of learning styles and efficient learning environments. It denies a hundred years of research about how people learn."

It is time to take a fresh look at our public education system, in order to save it from extinction, since it forms both the heart and the bedrock of the American Dream and the American concept of democracy.  To hear more of Patti’s ideas and her approach to this school change problem, read her novel, Angel Park, and request her free report, “Exploding the Paradigm: Five Ways Schools Must Change to Rescue the American Dream” through the School Reform page.

If what she says resonates with your own thoughts about bringing common sense to the school change debate, join her in building a new grassroots movement--to re-invent public education.  Check out the Getting Involved page for more information.

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

See the latest news, events, and appearances by Patricia Kokinos.