The Future of Education - 4/12/11

I had a meeting with a superintendent recently and she asked me where I saw education in the future. I told her that I saw virtual education taking over, school buildings unnecessary, and the old Mel Gibson movies, Mad Maxx come to mind. Remember how desolate things looked in those movies? For those of you too young to remember, just think "ghost town". We've been through some frightening changes and quite honestly I think it all comes down to the almighty dollar. Officials are no longer concerned with quality education, just the budget. Hearing the phrase "budget cuts" makes me cringe. Afterall, where will I be when schools are no longer spending? The state continuously increases the benchmarks across the board, but also hacks the education budget to bits. Our tutoring center is doing quite well thanks to some of the changes made in education. Kids are struggling because there just isn't enough money and not enough time to teach everything they want taught. I just read an article on virtual education and the lack of quality of the on-line courses now required of high school students in some southern state districts. Instead of reading the classic tales that you and I read in school and then reporting on what we read, students may now Google their answer, read a Wikipedia piece, cut/paste, and send it to the teacher. Where's the quality in that education? Something has to give here soon. The future of our nation depends on it.