70225 Transformation - Not reform, restucture or revolution.
Submitted by Ted on Sun, 2007/02/25 - 7:16am.
eSATSi advocacy team had moved from “reform”, “restructuring,” and “revolutionizing” of education to “transformation” about ten years ago. Now the February 25th 2007 heading in Arizona Republic article is: Presidential campaigns’ ‘transformers’ ready for action. Obama, Romney, and Edwards are now claiming that they will be transformational presidents.
Presidential historian James Burns (1978 book Leadership) opines they must not understand that you do not suddenly become a transformational president when the presidency is transitional. We should know.
Our transformative initiative for eLearningi has been highly focused initiative for 10 years and there will be another 10 years before we can hope for a total transformationi. Not the time line and narrow scope of a typical Washington politician.
HB2742 Update: $10 million to initiate transformation of Arizona schools has passed House Education Committee 7 0 1 0 and Appropriations Committee 10 7 0 0. So far there is no action scheduled this week, but that could change with Rules Committee, Committee of the Whole and then floor vote of the entire House. Each of the house members needs to hear from one or more of you within the next few days. There are only 30 districts. So if each of you just send two emails to you district representatives, we should cover everyone before the floor vote. www.azleg.gov has all the contact info you need.
Off Subject Video Clip: As a rocket engineer in the mid 60’s I proof tested liquid hydrogen filled tanks for the Saturn 5 moon rocket. I blew them up for NASA on the desert near what is now Chandler Heights. This 10 minute video is the funniest I have ever seen on the space program.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/22/top-gear-builds-launches-space-shuttle-car/
Point-Counter Point: Our David Berliner at ASU has a new book coming out on high-stakes testing: Collateral Damage, March 2007, Harvard Press. I suggest we implement effective eLearning, academic grade lever mastery learning, and personal learning plans integrated with continuous formative assessmenti for all Arizona students. Then maybe the high stakes will become perfunctory testing.
