Education expert Sam Chaltain said the key to reforming education is to bring democracy back into public schools.(Jane Park/MNS)
Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently said that incentives – through programs such as the Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grants – are the key to reforming education.
Image courtesy of Sam Chaltain
Sam Chaltain, author of American Schools.
But Sam Chaltain challenges that. He says the key is to bring democracy back into the equation.
Chaltain is the director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, a national education think tank with the mission to transform public education for America’s young people.
He’s recently led a series of Capitol Hill briefings, bringing national educators to discuss how best to reform an education that he argues has become too complacent over the years. He’s pushed for fairer schools, more effective teachers and the equitable distribution of education resources. He’s also heading a campaign called Rethink Learning Now, which places teaching, learning, and fairness as the three pillars of an effective education system.
Image courtesy of Sam Chaltain
American Schools challenges the current public school system.
Now, in his newly released book American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community, Chaltain outlines a framework for a new type of American public school: One that strikes a delicate balance between freedom and structure, one that offers the same opportunity to the richest and poorest students, and one that provides rich learning experiences for all.
“I wrote the book to try and help educators both recognize and tend to what I see as the fundamental tension in any organizational culture,” said Chaltain.
“There needs to be enough freedom reserved so that educators feel as though they’re able to bring their creativity to the process of lesson planning and that students feel that they’re not simply being asked to regurgitate information.”
The book is not just theory, Chaltain is quick to point out. Schools can start changing now, he said, if they’re willing to open up a dialogue to faculty, parents and students and discuss how to create a learning environment where students are not just “passive recipients of information.”
What we want to aim for, Chaltain said, are challenging, collaborative and relationship-driven classrooms across America.