With the education budget issues the nation is currently facing, former U.S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, and founder and CEO of The Harlem Children’s Zone, Geoffrey Canada, shared their concerns about education in America during the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series Tuesday.
Keven Ann Willey, editorial page editor for The Dallas Morning News, moderated as Spellings and Canada tackled the issue, “How will we teach America’s children?” to a sold-out audience in McFarlin Auditorium.
Willey began the conversation by saying the current education issue is the “civil rights issue of this century.”
In order to see any change in the education system, both Spellings and Canada believe the U.S. must be innovated and create a sense of urgency among citizens.
According to both speakers, the problem lies within our nation. Currently, America is trailing behind other nations in global competition.
“Look across America. We are not competing across the nation and we don’t think of it as a crisis,” Canada said. “Other countries are beating us where it really matters.”
Canada believes that many Americans’ focus is on Iraq and the Middle East, rather than on problems taking place in the United States, such as the education future generations.
“Our middle class kids are behind other nations. People got to realize what’s at stake here and act on it,” Canada said.
Spellings also noted that many privileged Americans only care for their children, believing that someone else will confront the education of less privileged children.
“Until we get our expectations for other kids on the same level as we do for our kids, we are going to fail,” Spellings said.
Both believe innovation has to happen in order to see change in, what is now considered, a “broken system.”
“Competition created innovation,” Canada said after explaining that people are competing to create something newer and faster to better society.
Yet, there has been no change in education.
“When people try to change it [education reforms], people go crazy,” he said.
Spellings agrees innovation is one of the keys to change, though, she also thinks people need to be more strategic and look at the problem from top to bottom.
“We need to put the resources around the object,” she said. “It’s all about structure. We do not use time and people effectively.”
Canada, admitting he has a radical view, thinks teachers who cannot teach must be fired.
“We are driving talent to the wrong end of the scale,” he said.
Spellings agreed, saying there must be great principles and great teachers because at present how children are being education is measured by the effectiveness of the teacher. Thus, she disagrees with President Obama’s desire to cut back on student testing.
In order to see the progress of children’s education, there needs to be annual testing in mathematics and reading, according to Spellings.
Spellings and Canada both think marking the student’s performance at the beginning and end of the year is imperative in order to see the progress in both teaching ability and child education.
“We need to reward the best people for being in challenge settings,” Spellings said.
While Canada and Spellings know this is not an issue that will be solved in a month or even a year, they think action must be taken now.
“We can’t study the problem forever…it ain’t gonna ever be perfect,” Canada said. “Lets get to work…get hands dirty and get things done.”
