Isn't it about time?

In 1517, Martin Luther did the unthinkable for someone in his position -- he rebelled. A Roman Catholic priest, he was fed up with the abuses of the church in that era. But rather than grumble about it, he did something.

The first shot in his revolution was to pound 95 "Theses" on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. These 95 paragraphs were critical of many church practices, explained some good ideas for reform and set in motion the Protestant Reformation.

Wow... How's that for grandiose comparisons?

Just so you know, I'm not comparing this blog to anything Martin Luther ever did, but you've got to start somewhere.

Here goes...

Public education in this country is cherished, and with good reason. We so value the idea that our children receive a decent education that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to set up a massive system to accomplish that goal.

But does it really work?

Certainly, there are many examples where this system works pretty well. But, sadly, there are far-too-many stories of flaccid curricula, bored teachers and unmotivated students.

Just as many of the people of the Roman Catholic church of Luther's day were honorable in their intentions and practices, there are many hard-working, dedicated professionals in education. But the system is broken. It hasn't really changed much in, oh, about 100 years.

Sure, we have computers in many classrooms, there are more essential services for special needs kids and maybe the cafeteria food is less noxious than before, but these are just marginal changes. The way we teach kids hasn't much changed. And where changes have occurred, they have been disastrous experiments. More on that in the days to come.

I don't have all the answers. Heck, I may have very few, but you may have an idea or two.

I would love to hear your take on why public education isn't working right. I don't want to hear mere griping, I want to hear ideas and solutions.

You see, the best-kept secret about public education is that it is controlled by people; you and me. We elect district and charter boards (for those of you fortunate enough to live in states with charter schools). We send our kids to these institutions, and we sure as heck pay for all of it.

We should be able to get some ideas of our own put into play. And we definitely need to kill a few of the educrats' ideas before they either get started or get out of hand.

We need professionals to run schools, but not to overrun them. (And I mean overrun in every possible context).

So here I am.

I'm ready to listen.

Ready to react.

Ready for reform.