Hi Rich and Rougers,

We up here in Washington State are looking to actually instigate conversation in the community about NCLB and education in general.  What we get here is almost all one directional; the state office of public education is run by a state superintendent of public instruction who has staked her entire career on ed reform, and on the WASL.  She sends out statements and broadsides proclaiming the success of the tests, acknowledging when she has to that tweaks are necessary.  But she doesn't listen.  It's a one way conversation.  And she lies, manipulates, and bullies.  It's like, well, almost everywhere I guess.  As a result there is very little real conversation about education and no child, beyond rhetoric and hysteria.

We are basing our little action on the work that they did up in BC, with the Education Charter.  Interviewing people around the province with a one question survey: what doees it mean to be well educated?  or something close to that.  And they held meetings around the province, invited people to come and then they listened, then pulled together what they heard into what they called the education charter.

We want to do a similar action, in two parts.  One part is having adults respond, both educators and those they can interview, to a series of questions (no more than five) getting at the same info.  The second part is to put together a brief lesson sequence that has the kids interviewing adults in their lives with the same questions, and then having discussions and creating action plans based on what they learn.  We will be creating the plans this summer in hopes that teachers will carry out the lessons/surveys at the start of the year.  Seems like a good way to start a school year, talking with kids about the purpose/meaning of education.

We would like two kinds of responses from those who can take the time to respond.  First, are there questions that we should be asking that we are not asking (this list I'm sending out is a very preliminary list)?  What should be on the list?

And second, how would you respond to the questions yourselves?

I guess there is a third response we'd like: to whom should we send these questions, once we get them solidified, so that we can have as broad a base as possible.

We hope to build allies through conversation, have teachers and kids connecting with thecommunity.  We also want to involve the public as peers rather than as passive observers.  We also want to highlight the gap between what the tests are requiring and what the community knows to be necessary education.......

Thanks in advance, as they say, for whatever help you can provide.

Here are the questions we have on our list so far.  Some may be removed, others added as we continue our process.

what does it mean to be well educated?

what do you need to know and be able to do to be successful (whatever that means)?

how are you served by your education?

what do you do that helps you to be successful right now?

what are the characteristics of an educated person?

quiet questions that hopefully will get folks thinking and talking about the gap between what schools do and what kids really need in order to be ready to live productively....

anyway, am interested in your thoughts about questions to add tothe list (and for the moment we are avoiding the more obviously political who do schools serve type questions0, and whether we might reach out through Rouge and elsewhere to get more involved.....

Doug Selwyn
Seattle