Similarly, I am a big fan of the Iowa Core, and encourage the DE to continually evaluate those standards to ensure they are what our students need most. I have often said that one of the most difficult decisions a teacher has to make every day is what not to teach. Again, it’s a challenge for teachers to stay current with what our students need most in order to be successful once they leave our system, so if there is an agency at the state level to help make that determination, I’m certainly in favor and am confident our students will benefit.

These are just but 2 examples of why I feel Iowa will always need a dynamic Department of Education. Thanks to you and all the others in the Department for helping us to be better at what we do.

One thing I think could be a real help to us small districts is a way collaborate. I am the only one in my District that teaches the things I do. It would be helpful to have a way to talk with others teaching what I do. Friday, several local districts are coming together to get a briefing on the Common Core. During this meeting I hope to make connections. If the Department of Ed can in some way facilitate these meetings with a page on your website maybe.

The research on collaboration with common assessments and time would be heaven for so many teachers. I do teach with others in my department, but our Spanish teacher is the only one in the District. That is true of many of our teachers. Everyone needs to collaborate. Otherwise, our small school model will fall behind.

The Principal/Teacher symposium was a great day for our school and led to a lot of discussion and will lead to changes. However, without support of teachers in our fields, it will be difficult. Understanding best practices, implementing them, and discussion the implementation success and failures would be a wonderful way to transform our shall schools.

This post is more focused on the appropriate role of local control. The role of the federal government is dealt with in another post on this site, in case you missed it. Look for the recurring theme of balance there as well.

I appreciate the critique – thanks for stopping by.

Today, local “responsibility” is simply to adhere to the joint policies of the state and federal departments of education. This is not the road to having “a school system on par with the highest performing education systems in the world” let alone, to improving.

It’s not about the structure or who holds what position, it’s about each student sitting in any Iowa classroom who should be the recipient of the best we can offer to help him learn. What that may be is not some “consistent” dispensation of policy by ever absent policy makers. Rather it is the astute group of educators at the school who are a learning team themselves with the flexibility to bring best practices personalized to each student.

This kind of functional balance will not come from “big changes and investments in education.” We have just implemented “big changes and investments ” since 1980 and the results have been remarkably and consistently poor.

We need smart analysis for smart changes. TIP: Look to professional development at the school level, but do not perpetuate the current delivery system which has fallen short. Encourage principals and teachers to learn and do for their students—who are unique individuals, except in their desire to be successful.