Top 10 Actions You Can Take to Make a Difference in Public Education, #1

Hm. How to say this. I love Change.org and its team, and totally understand their out-of-the-gates requests that we new guides write the background pieces for these newest blogs - the Primer, "Top 10 Reads," "Top 10 Videos," and "Top 5 Controversies" so far - as an orientation for people wanting background resources to learn more. It's smart: all of them will be there on the "About" page for new readers evermore.

So I'm with 'em. I see it. I'm not biting any of my Change-homeys' hands here; I'll lick 'em to my dying day for their vision and heart, and their growing of such an incredibly stimulating and inspiring community of readers, commenters, action-takers, change-makers. I mean that.

(Now for the expected "but.")

But: I feel like St. Sebastian (sans halo, sans "Saint") when I write these pieces, but with a twist: the arrows are self-inflicted. It just seems a fool's errand, in a subject as vast as education, to think I can satisfy myself - much less everybody else - with the entries on any of those lists. It pains me to even try.

So after first thanking everybody for the tact and support as you noted the inevitable omissions on the earlier posts, I want to suggest this: A (Crowd-Sourced) Top 10 Plus Plus Plus Actions You Can Take to Make a Difference in Education.

In other words, here comes my original - only the first one, followed by more over the next week, which I'll consolidate later. You weigh in with extensions of them, and/or additions of your own - one, three, ten, fifty - and we'll get all democratic about it. That's the beauty of blogs: they're shared writing spaces, poly- instead of mono- or dialogical.

So here comes the first of ten:

Participatory Democracy #1: Get involved in your local school board politics

Americans have a strange way of fetishizing the politicians in DC - Congresspeople, and moreso Presidents - and completely ignoring their local politics. In education, that's fatal: your state and local education officials make a much larger difference on the quality of schools where you live. States and local school boards set standards, dictate policies, and set budgets (only 10% of which budgets, at most, come from Washington DC).

I see local apathy towards school board elections as one of, if not the, greatest tragedies in public education. When local voters ignore these, and fail to run for office in them for the sake of their kids and communities, they abandon the field to much smarter special interests who run candidates to serve their agendas. Case in point: The Texas Board of Education is currently controlled by creationist ideologues fielded and funded by the "Discovery Institute" - based in Washington State.

Their agenda? Undermine science literacy by writing anti-scientific standards into Texas state science curriculum. If they succeed - the battle will end in April - then the creationists succeed at undermining science nation-wide because, as the Discovery Institute knows, textbook companies write their texts aiming to please Texas and California - the two biggest markets - above all. All the other states have to pick from textbooks written mostly for Texans.

As I wrote elsewhere last month,

U. of Arkansas Prof. Jay Greene (with whom I disagree philosophically on education reform, but learn from in this instance - and thanks to Philip Kovacs for prompting me in his comment below to add that) says it well:

Local school board elections on off-election days have very low turnout, often in the single digits. Given the obscurity of local school politics, it’s easier for the employees and their organized interests to dominate school politics. They’re just about the only ones following what is going on and voting in those elections.

What’s good for the creationist goose can be good for the scientific gander too - if only the gander played the politics smarter.

So get informed, and better still - if you want change in your schools, and have the time, run for blasted office. Pull an Obama - use technology and web 2.0 (heck, use me here) to get grass-roots support, to find others with your issue at heart to run for positions too.

The most insane thing? You don't even need a high school diploma to run for board of education positions in Texas. The full requirements (and check here for your own state, c. 2007), to be a person empowered to decide curriculum, standards, and funds for the education of all youths in their public schools, are these:

Resident of US and State of Texas; registered voter; no felony convictions; not adjudged mentally incompetent.

No education required to control education? But judging by Texas, you probably already figured that out. You can't make this stuff up.

(Read this to learn more about normal Texas citizens taking their curriculum back from special interests. If they can, you can. And stay tuned, if you care about the separation of Genesis and science, for the first "action" campaign on this blog.)

Your take?

~   ~   ~

Next: Participatory Democracy #2: Get involved in Congressional education politics....

And P.S.: On day two since the launch, if you can't tell by the tone of this piece, I'm ridiculously happy to be discovering so many excellent people and ideas in the comments. They're making my mind a popcorn machine in full heat. I can't wait to watch us all harness this energy and try to channel it towards change.

Image: Saint Sebastian (part of wonderful set) by freizeit