Thursday, February 12, 2009

Fischbowl 2007: A Blueprint for Colorado

I read the Fischbowl blog from January by Karl Fische and it was called "A Blueprint for Colorado". This was a long, but interesting blog about a proposal to reform Colorado's Education. The reform is based on a report called "Tough Choices or Tough Times." Education experts and law makers believe that this reform could take up to 15 years and will have to involve many changes.

In this blog Karl Fisch points out many interesting facts about the executive summary from the "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report. I really like what he says in Step One. It talks about what would happen if the plan was a success and the majority of students attend and graduate college. At this time only 25-30% of people that are over 25 have a Bachelor's degree or higher. Where would they put all of these people and where are they all going to be able to find jobs that they are qualified for.

I also like what he talks about in Step Three. He mentions that the people creating this reform would like to recruit the top one-third of students graduating from college to become teachers. He explains the fact that they will have to raise the salary to attract many people and that will affect the retirement benefits. It is also pretty obvious that not everyone would want to be a teacher even if they made more money. We all know that it is hard work and it takes a special type of person that has patience and desire to help others.

Another thing that I thought was interesting is that they want to give to areas that need the help most. As he says, this is a great idea, but it is impossible to keep people from helping their school or community when they are financially able. There are many other important facts that Karl Fische talks about in this blog. I didn't know that they were considering something like this in Colorado and it will be interesting to see what happens. There are many problems with the current plan that will need to be changed and I agree that they need to involve teachers, students, and parents in this process.

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