Weekend 2 Part 2

After taking a lot of time to think about our visit from Jason Glass, I am still mixed about the blueprint.  I think almost everyone is in agreement that we need to improve our education system, but good leaders would say this when everything is great also.   Jason Glass told us the blueprint is a lot of recommendations and then he will see what will be able to be changed.  In our classes at Drake we spend a great deal of time talking about change and effective ways to make change. It has not been recommended that we make a lot of "suggestions" and then see what sticks.  Our changes should have research behind it and as specific as possible.  There is a lot in the blueprint that has not research behind or research that is to the contrary.

During our class, someone asked about the third grade retention policy in the blueprint.  Jason first let everyone know that it was the governor's idea and not his, however, he did support it based on what is happening in Florida.  There is a lot of research that does not support retaining students.  This research also suggests that retention leads to a higher drop out rate.  Perhaps the 90/90/90 schools is a better model.  These schools provide students more reading time that is intensive and helps them to excel.  I think this would be better than retaining a student.

During our Systems Thinking class we watched the Daniel Pink Drive video talking about how money does not motivate people the way we perceive that it does.  Yet, we are looking at a pay system that is based on this even though research says it doesn't help.  This system will also create friction among staffs.  Jason's response was "to look at Eagle County in Colorado."  They didn't have a problem with it.  My question, how does he know?  Did he do surveys for this information?  Did he stick around long enough to see the results after the dust had settled?

I applaud Jason for attending so many activities to discuss education in Iowa and for being open for questions about the blueprint.  I hope we improve education in Iowa, but that we do it the right way with proven research and  having all stakeholders involved in the decision making process.