Education should always be on the top of our priority list. The Department of Education in the Draft of the National Education Plan gave many examples as to how it should be place on the top of that list. The National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) calls for “revolutionary transformation rather than evolutionary tinkering.” This draft plan sets up two basic goals: 1) to close achievement gaps no matter what race or social economic status the student is to make sure they graduate from high school and are prepared for college, 2) to raise the proportion of college graduates from 39% to 60 % holding 2-4 year degrees. Teachers need to begin to focus on “connected learning.” Learning that connects to real life. Learning that will match what and how students learn, match what they need to know, how they learn, where and when the need to learn, as well as who needs to learn. Students need to be learning by being engage and empowered. Students need to be answering real life questions through their learning. And the professional development and training needs to change to an “Always On” type of training. It should be available for student and teacher on a 24/7 type bases. We should be using “data to drive our continuous improvement.” Issues are going to be finding the funding and revamping our entire educational structure. We have always structured our classrooms based on teacher imparts information and students learn it. However, we are going to have to change our entire thought process in order to change the way we are teaching and students are learning. I am afraid this will not be a change that can happen as quickly as 2020; however, we must try. Without this change we will continue to fall behind other countries.
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