I wanted to bring to your attention two education initiatives that you might be interested in, Iowa’s Blueprint for Education and Education for the Innovation Age.
Iowa’s Blue Print for Education: Governor Branstad and Iowa’s Education Director recently unveiled a plan to dramatically overhaul the public school system. Entitled Iowa’s Blueprint for Education, the governor hopes that the plan will give Iowa the best schools in the nation, and possibly the world. The proposal will be presented to the lawmakers when they begin debating reforms in January. In the near future Governor Branstad will go on tour, taking his new education plan to various spots around the state. Branstad will take feedback from his tour then present the plan to the legislature.
You can view an introductory video regarding the plan by clicking on the attached video.
Video: Iowa Rising to Greatness – An Imperative for Improving Iowa‘s Schools
The entire Iowa’s Blue Print for Education can be found at this link: Iowa Ed Blueprint
I recently attended a presentation by Dr. Jason Glass, Iowa’s Director of Education, regarding the pending education reform efforts for Iowa Schools. The general concepts presented by Dr. Glass would seem to guide Iowa toward the goal of being a World-Class School System. As an educational community I wanted to share this information.
Education for the Innovation Age: A group of area superintendents met over the summer of 2011 to craft a white paper outlining an approach to educational transformation. In September 2011, the superintendents shared their work with their colleagues and on October 5, 2011, the Eastern Iowa Compact was publicly introduced to local school boards and business and community leaders. The Compact is designed to gather school board, business, community, teacher, parent, and student signatures from across Eastern Iowa as a public declaration of permission and support for schools to forge ahead in creating the schools our children need and deserve. The white paper and Compact clarifies the outcomes, but DOES NOT dictate the means with which schools use to produce those outcomes. Collaboration, choice, and joint accountability are the cornerstones of the work.
If you are interested, please look at the web site www.commitandact4kids.org, read the Compact and if interested you can voice your support for the white paper.
Student Voice Video Contest: I also wanted to bring to your attention, a contest that is available for our students in grades 9-12. It gives students the opportunity to make a video showing our community from a student perspective of what they wish school was like. Details can be found at this link: http://iowatransformed.com/student-voice-video-contest/. Hopefully there will be several CPU high school students who consider submitting a video.
