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Panel Detail:

Monday, April 24, 2006
10:15 AM - 11:30 AM

Ensuring America's Success in Education

Moderator:

Susan Sclafani, Managing Director, Chartwell Education Group

"It is time to rethink the American educational system," says Dennis Vicars of Human Services Management Corp. At right is Susan Tave Zelman.

"It is time to rethink the American educational system," said panelist Dennis Vicars of Human Services Management Corp. Vicars noted that the U.S. public school system has been largely unchanged over the past 40 years and is designed to prepare children to work in an agrarian or assembly-line economy. Such a system does not prepare students for the rapidly changing and highly competitive global work force. Instead, the panelists agreed that students must be creatively prepared to learn throughout their lives. We must, in the words of Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Zelman, design a fluid "womb-to-tomb" public education system to drive economic growth in the 21st century.

An effective "womb-to-tomb" system must begin with strong early childhood education programs. Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa surprised many by saying that he considered pre-kindergarten education programs the most single most important item in the state budget. Eighty percent of a child′s long-term academic potential is predicted by educational attainment at age 6, and early childhood programs can have a dramatic impact on narrowing achievement gaps between socioeconomic groups. Vicars noted that early childhood programs include some of the most exciting and innovative curricula in the U.S. educational system, and he stressed the importance of preserving the uniqueness of these programs while expanding them to the masses.

In addition to early childhood programs, our educational system must also allow workers to acquire new skills through post-secondary opportunities available throughout their lives. Harriet Arnone of New York Institute of Technology and Susan Sclafani of the Chartwell Education Group noted that adult learners tend to be more focused than younger college students, and that the ability to cater to these learners and allow them to constantly adopt new skills will be the key to long-term economic growth and a strong middle class.

The panelists also explored other characteristics of a superior public education system for the 21st century. A better system would include both high-quality mass education and deep academic opportunities for the most talented students, said Sclafani. Vicars noted that a superior system would have roles for public and private entities, with government creating high standards and private entities providing choice and quality to enable a variety of pathways for different types of learners. Vilsack noted that the American business community needed to take responsibility for defining the expectations and goals of our public education system, while Zelman called for the engagement of businesses and higher education in the creation of new school models. Finally, Arnone stressed the importance of basic literacy skill development to long-term success in a wide range of disciplines.

The comments by listeners in the interactive portion of the panel highlighted the importance of better communicating the crises in American education. Many of the listeners expressed shock at America′s low educational productivity and questioned the data. After the panelists clarified and affirmed their statistics, it became clear that more public dialogue about the quality and performance of our schools needed to take place. National leaders and candidates for national office must do a better job, Gov. Vilsack said, of galvanizing public opinion and support for the many changes that must occur in the US educational system.

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