While walking my dogs this morning I was thinking about system optimization and how the leaders of Detroit and Wayne County can't seem to understand that Detroit and Wayne County are a piece of the whole (State of Michigan).
Granted they may be the heart of our state's system but they are a cancer to the whole state with their lack of leadership and accountability to their taxpayers through endless non-planning and short-term thinking.
Our school system continues to sub-optimize by refusing to understand that K-12 is a system (needs to change to K-16) and throws money at individual efforts instead of the system.
Education systems must be aligned in both curriculum and core standards. We don't need to fail students but we do have to have measures that provide data that tells if students have mastered a subject area. Superintendents and Principals must lead this effort. After all they own the system.
http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
A thought came to me:
" It's easier (cost effective) to prepare a student when they are young than to prevent a dropout (cost of failure) when they are older."
Like the dogs - go to http://www.angelfire.com/ga2/kttenkaboodle3/page4.html