General Session speakers Vollmer and Khan inspire support for public schools, new instructional methods
Published: January 3, 2012
Bashing public schools has become a sensational blood sport that has commandeered the public’s attention with half-truths and misleading statistics determined to “annihilate the emotional and intellectual ties that bind the American people to their public schools,” charged Jaime Vollmer, the first keynote speaker at CSBA’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in December.
Formerly a critic of public education himself, Vollmer describes his conversion and offers educators a guide to help them win back the public’s support in his book “Schools Cannot Do it Alone,” which formed the basis of his talk.
The mission of public schools has changed drastically over the past several decades, Vollmer explained, with parents now expecting schools to provide a variety of community services well beyond the three Rs.
“It’s been a long time since schools educated the elite and stuck to a few core academic subjects,” he said. That’s why the free market is a ridiculous model for schools, Vollmer continued. “The free market cares nothing about equity.”
Schools today are required to educate “the most diverse, demanding and distracted generation of students ever,” so making accountability systems punitive by taking over schools and getting rid of school boards is “profoundly undemocratic,” he said.
“It’s a system problem, not a people problem,” he argued.
The modern economy requires that all students get a good education, because the decent middle-class jobs that used to be available for low-skilled workers just aren’t there any more, making it a moral imperative to educate everyone to high levels, “The moral thing to do is now the necessary thing to do,” Vollmer said.
That means voters who may have made good under the outdated paradigm need to be reminded and convinced that even if they don’t have kids in school, every aspect of their welfare depends on the country having a well-educated population.
“We have the winning argument. Everyone benefits when schools improve,” Vollmer said. “Poorly educated people are desperate, and desperate people are dangerous.”
Khan proves math can be fun
Continuing a recent tradition of diverting, intriguing speakers from outside the direct realm of school governance, Salman Khan, the second General Session speaker, mesmerized the audience with the story of his Web-based video curriculum.
Khan’s product—offered free of charge over the Internet for anyone to use through his Khan Academy—is a comprehensive series of video tutorials, primarily in math, but also branching out into other subjects as Khan adds faculty.
The students he was tutoring—starting informally with one of his cousins—preferred the video format, Khan found, because they could watch his explanations of anything from addition to calculus at their own pace, and replay sections until they understood.
Adults too, stymied by swift explanations in high school, have gone back to master concepts they assumed were beyond them, and many have proceeded to earn advanced degrees—crediting Khan’s methods for breaking down the barriers to higher math.
After the general session, Khan continued the conversation with a room full of AEC participants eager to hear how the online service can be used in their schools. An enthusiastic audience kept the charismatic speaker talking beyond the session’s scheduled time as he patiently indulged questions and photo opportunities.
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