Revisiting Resolutions
I like making resolutions. I however, call them goals. It’s easier, I believe, to be goal oriented than resolute. It just sounds better and its targets sound somewhat easier to achieve when called goals and not resolutions. With that being said as 2009 was just getting its legs I wrote in this space about resolutions that our soon to be President could make in regards to education (President Obama’s Resolutions for Education). I’m not sure what President Obama would call them (my guess is goals), but I do know that he has made the State of Education a major focus as part of his new budget. As an educator I believe that our place within the global community is dependent on the workforce that we prepare so I was very happy (thrilled really) when I heard him mention his goals in relation to his budget proposal.
The problem is (you just knew one was coming, be honest) how the significant amount of funding that President Obama has appropriated is distributed. The funding will not arrive to states and districts in the form of block grants that allow local education agencies to decide how best to use it. It will be attached to specific programs and for use with those programs only. I understand the reason for this. The government wants to ensure financial responsibility and prevent political casualties that could develop from a scandal. However, our students needs should trump savvy political maneuvering. Especially in the current state that the United States of America finds itself in.
As I stated in the aforementioned article on Obama’s Resolutions for Education, our students today require a full service approach to their learning and advancement. MSNBC.com reported today about the “tidal wave” of homelessness that is effecting our youth. This article (required reading for educators really) is just the latest example of how the full service model of education is growing in both need and acceptance. Sadly the days of students walking through the school doors and being ready to learn, without any help, are long gone. It is an assumption we can not make anymore. Instead we must assume that if a student is not coming to school ready to learn that he or she has a need that must be met first in order for that learning process to begin. While government assistance in the form of block grants would have given states and school districts options in meeting the ever growing needs of its student populations, these entities still have a very powerful force in meeting those goals: A resolute group known as teachers.
