Another Year Without Opportunities

While most states forge ahead with education reform measures such as public online courses (Florida), university/charter school partnerships (Indiana), Education Savings Accounts for students with special needs (Arizona), and easy-to-decipher online school report cards (D.C.), Nebraska is still clinging tightly to antiquated ideas about how to reach our ever-more-diverse K-12 population.

The top-down education model we have in Nebraska was developed during the Industrial Revolution. It may have served students well when most of them would be working in factories as adults and when our population was more homogeneous, but it's not working anymore. Perhaps that's why our proficiency scores are so dismal, especially with low-income and minority students.

Exactly who is trying to prevent our education system from keeping up with the times and providing students with opportunities that will help them to succeed in our increasingly global economy?

Generally speaking, the people who fight the hardest against education opportunity are those who have the most invested in the status quo. There's a tremendous amount of power and money involved in K-12 education in Nebraska. The budget for Lincoln Public Schools alone is $1 billion per year. 

Testimony for various education opportunity bills in legislative committees and on the floor of the legislature was very illuminating this past session. It has become very clear which people are interested in the educational success of individual children and which people are interested in maintaining the political and financial interests of adults who are capitalizing on our century-old status quo.

In 2019 will K-12 students in Nebraska finally gain access to opportunities their peers are taking advantage of from coast to coast? Will legislators get serious about closing the achievement gap and providing alternatives for students who are assigned to failing schools?

Let's hope so. Our kids only get one shot at childhood.