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The Rodel Foundation of Delaware wants to help Delaware transform its schools into one of the finest public education systems in the nation by 2015.
Rodel President Paul Herdman discussed that initiative, called Vision 2015, on Tuesday, June 13, at a town hall meeting at the Virden Center.
Vision 2015 is led by a steering committee of 28 people, including education, business, labor, philanthropic and civic leaders. The committee is researching Delaware’s educational needs to create a blueprint for educational success.
Once adopted, Rodel and the Vision 2015 steering committee will work with communities, government representatives and legislators to implement the plan.
Secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff is a member of the Vision 2015 steering committee, which has met 30 times since it began organizing in November 2005.
“We’re doing well, but we need to do better,” said Woodruff. “The question is: How do we get there?”
Vision 2015 wants a sense of how communities define a successful school system.
The group suggests asking what people want a newspaper headline in 2015 to say about local schools. Then they’re asked what needs to be done to make that headline happen, Woodruff said.
Like many who attended the Lewes meeting, Woodruff said the year 2015 is not soon enough. “I have a granddaughter in the third grade. She will be graduating in 2015. We need to start acting more quickly than that,” Woodruff said. “I want us to have the best opportunities for every single child.”
Only about a dozen members of the public attended the Lewes meeting, joining about 14 speakers, Rodel representatives and members of the press.
But the low turnout did not discourage Herdman. Vision 2015 expects to have its blueprint and plan for action by September, and he expects greater community involvement as the plan’s statewide implementation is addressed.
Margaret Reyes, a parent residing in Lewes, said it is important not to over-emphasize college attendance or graduation to measure success.
“We seem to have this bar that says the measure of success is college. Trade opportunities are not treated as worthy societal values and that means that we end up trying to stuff square pegs into round holes,” Reyes said.
Reyes also said she seeks schools characterized by “gender-blind and race-blind teachers.”
Michelle Jewell of Georgetown said she wants increased awareness of the world and an emphasis on mastery of other languages with exposure from early ages, as in European schools.
Others desires were for early childhood exposure to music and arts and for parent participation and accountability.
Herdman said the reforms would encounter obstacles, such as dealing with Delaware’s school district system. “Issues around local control are huge,” Herdman said. “We need to try to find the right balance between state and local control, with the emphasis on local control.”
For now, Herdman says the big issues include spending smarter, maximizing the use of existing money and private investment, and avoiding replication of services and contracts.
“We need to eliminate redundancies at the middle level and get more money and assets invested at the school level,” Herdman said.
“That’s part of the problem,” said Pat Butcher of Seaford. “Everybody wants to control the money.”
For now the Rodel Foundation of Delaware and the Broad Foundation are funding this effort. Rodel has retained the services of Cambridge Leadership Associates, an international firm that has facilitated transformation and systems changes for major corporations, nonprofits school systems. The Boston Consulting Group has also been retained to provide research, analysis and recommendations.
Confronted with the suggestion that Vision 2015 may be creating nothing more than a wish list, a dream list that probably will not survive real life obstacles, Jacobson says a destination must be envisioned before anyone can plan how to reach it.
Woodruff said a friend recently accused her of being a dreamer. “I am a dreamer,” Woodruff said. “But a lot of times my dreams come true.”
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