We can return public education to it's necessary place of preeminence, necessary for our communities and nation. Here's my plan in a nutshell:

1) Increase the numbers of active, motivated, thoughtful, professional educators (support included) involved in the decision making that affects school policy. I.e., give them a union they can believe in again and where they believe their voice is welcome (and not met by the voice of fear "you're out of order!) so that they will return to participate in the stewards council, both as stewards and as members.

2) Pre-empt administrative punitive action by adding a binding second function of the union: self-regulation, like other professional unions (airline professionals, British Columbia Teachers union). Transition the role of administration to facilitate the classroom teacher and administrative visits to cooperative visits. Move the emphasis for merit pay solely from student performance on standardized tests to qualitative assessments by concerned and cooperating principals who are trained to "catch teachers doing right" instead of the old "catch them doing wrong"

See http://www.bcct.ca/documents/underst_self_regulation.pdf

3) Add a higher paid track of "master teacher" or "professor" to the caste system currently ending with classroom teacher. make this a nationally competitively bid position that has a 3-5 year term and requires 5 years classroom teaching experience and either a graduate degree or NBCT certification. Require position to have 2/3 instructional time and 1/3 mentoring/facilitating to counterbalance the facilitative and observational activities of the administrators that are being trained and held accountable to "catch teachers doing right." Increase the pay of these individuals by

$20,000 adjusted annually for cost of living and years of experience.

4) Establish fair living wage salary schedules for each type of work performed in school system - index industry standards where possible. Adjust each salary annually for additional year of experience and cost of living index. See http://www.shawnbeightol.com/Proposed40ksalaryschedule2.htm

5)Change the culture of the school from school as a business back to educator as a professional (like doctors), emphasize and train administration according to state and federal statutes that see the educator as the most important employee as frontline and the others, including administrators, as facilitators and support(yes, important, but not "more").

6) Bring true transformation to curricular offerings - possibly 3 branches of school - "professional"/highly specialized/college track, Votech/artisan/skilled worker track, and a third track devoted to children who demonstrate a persistent resistance to services offered under "regular" circumstance for modifying behavior to be compatible with the majority of students in either of the two prior tracks.

7) Develop a community based oversight board that will commission and underwrite an ongoing evaluation and prescription of/for the entire educational system, ultimately from K - graduate school to ensure quality career/skills and knowledge-based education are top priority. This would require a 5 year accountability plan as MGT of America is capable of producing. Their track record suggests a possible $800 million recovered. Benefits would include both the lowering of taxes and the increase in educator salaries. See other side for an open letter to the community.

8) Develop teams of highly skilled, impassioned educators to move into schools like Edison and study the community to design a tailor made curriculum program. This was done at Turner Tech in the shadow of central High and it worked very well for years.