The following is a letter that will be sent by me to my Congressional Representative and Senators.
The Public School Recocilliation and Reclamation Act
It has become clear that over the past several years, the American public educational system has fallen more and more into decline. Therefore, I am suggesting that the Congress pass a comprehensive Public School Reconciliation and Reclamation Act.
The Public School Reconciliation And Reclamation Act is a comprehensive act to prepare American public schools for the twenty-first century.
This act would:
Provide grants and other monies to American Public Schools to renovate, upgrade and develop American public eduction.
Provisions of the Act include but are not limited to the following:
1. Every student graduating from an American public School will have received comprehensive coursework and a passing grade in at least two or more of the the following subject areas: American history, civics, and government.
2. In order to keep up with the challenges from an increasing technological work environment each participating American public school will receive grants and other forms of aid to develop STEM courses. All public school students will be offered the opportunity to receive coursework in one or more of STEM disciplines.
3. American Public Schools will also have available other monies to develop resources in hard technology including high speed Internet access, updated computer systems and other hardware.
4. Since the workplace of the future will become increasingly automated and the availability of employment in the near future is increasingly decreasing, each public school participating in the act will develop courses, strategies and other tools for students that will teach and engage students in entrepreneurial skills such as business development, marketing and so forth. This would also include a component on business ethics.
5. A significant part of American public education will be the development of service projects. Students will participate throughout their educational years in a variety of service projects.
We believe that public schools have been neglected over the last several years and since the majority of our children attend public schools this will be an investment in American education. As Mark Twain said, “Out of the public schools grows the greatness of a nation.”
Thank you for your attention.
Mel Hathorn
When I went to school in the 1950s, I benefited from the government WPA program that built many schools, including my high school. But I find many a one room schoolhouse with only one teacher for six grades provided a very good education for so many.
With the ability of the Internet to provide information and teach skills, we have to rethink very carefully bricks and mortar aspect of our schools. I see the future of public schools to be places of socialization and learning how to do teamwork to solve very complex and necessary problems/projects.
Ron