The Education Marketplace: K-12
I consider myself lucky that I am not a parent for one simple reason: how do you choose a school for your kid when there are so many options? I say this from years of purchasing experience. I’m a deer-in-the-headlights shopper, frozen stiff by options, upgrades, sales, and outside opinion.
I spend countless hours typing product names into Google’s white bar of knowledge, read tedious user reviews (when I find out that Ed from Wisconsin took issue with the noise level of an air conditioner I organize a boycott-of-one of the unfortunate company), and ultimately talk myself out of the purchase for fear of making the wrong decision. Seriously, I still haven’t replaced my stolen iPod since I’m convinced a large banner will reveal a better model the moment after my credit card is swiped.
Options, however, are not limited to my next gadget. I’m speaking about modern schools, the K-12 type. School has changed. Today there exists multiple school descriptors: independent charter, pilot, in-district charter, and innovation. Similarities and differences have been drawn between the pilot and innovation schools. Unions versus non-unions versus some unions. School committee approval combined with state education department approval.
I remember my days as a waist-hugging, cot-napping student eager to prove I could properly identify my subjects and predicates. Teachers bubbled over with the necessary excitement to capture our attention and ultimately our minds. Our small hands stretched towards the ceiling as we panted, “Call on me!” from behind our desks.
Growing up in a small, wooded Western Massachusetts town, I remember having innovative teachers and access to a brand new Mac with a green screen, but never a whole school devoted to innovation. Had my childhood education been lacking? What new teaching style has begun to unlock the potential of future generations?
I’ve seen photos from innovation schools in newspapers and online with scenes pulled straight from my youth. Circle of chairs. Check. Folded hands. Check. Teacher holding court. Check. From the outside I see normalcy. Where’s the innovation? Kids in lab coats huddled around beakers as teachers produce plumes of smoke through magical concoctions? Miniature Wright Brothers running forward hugging contraptions that would transport them closer towards their dreams?
The terms fill my head. My eyelids struggle against these weighted terms, ideas first marketed as gravity busters that prove to be lead balloons. Maybe I just don’t get it. That’s always a very real option. Maybe innovation begins with the institution and will ultimately benefit the children.
To know more I will begin Google searches, combing the Internet for opinions on school models, new and old. I will read countless entries submitted by parents eager to make the decision of which track to place their child on while combating increasing trepidation as more options are created to better serve their children’s needs.
For right now however, I need to take a moment, look out my window at the hustle and bustle of parents taking their kids to school, and say “Thank you.” Thank you that if children enter my life it will be years before they go to school and hopefully by then the choices will be clear to a parent just looking for the right answer, the best answer.
