Education Reform?
The other day, in explanation as to why I tend to lean towards the left politically, I mentioned to my father that emphasis on education was a big part. "Everyone is for education," he replied. “If everyone is for education,” I thought, “why is our system such a mess?”

Monday's Editorial in the Oregonian featured a piece under "Education Reform" by Peter Cookson, Jr. (Dean of the Graduate school of Education and Counseling at Lewis and Clark College) entitled "If our high schools were like Google. . ." I was intrigued. He presented ten Google truths, among them I found such generalizations as: "Democracy works on the web (it's also true in high schools)" and "You can be serious without wearing a suit (addressing a techer by his or her first name is not the fall of Western Civilization)". These truths and others were then translated into deliverables such as "A strong emphasis on acquiring genuine language and numeracy skills." and "Every graduate should have mastered a second or third language".

I agree with Mr. (Dr.?) Cookson that we should have educational goals. I also believe that there are things about Google's philosophy that could translate into the classroom. The deliverables he mentioned are great, and I want to achieve them as well. But so does my dad. So does every principal and educator in the state. The machine is still broken, and generalizations like this aren't helping our elected officials, who can actually do something about the problem, fix it.

We need more from Mr. Cookson, Governor Kulongowski, myself, and every citizen of this country than being “for education" or suggesting "a high school be willing to break the mold". Beyond the paradigm shift vaguely expressed by Mr. Cookson, we need concrete ideas and realistic steps that will take us from the 19th-century curriculum he criticized into the 21st century in which we live.