Ownership implies the legal right of possession. Ownership is an active concept.
Owning Education requires active participants who are:
- proactive leaders not reactive followers
- exercising choices not accepting mandates
- serving as critics not cheerleaders
- acting as employers not employees
- seeking knowledge not accepting the status quo
- focusing on parental authority not children's desires
- verifying not assuming
- taking the ultimate responsibility for children's education.
How many well intentioned parents assume, wait, accept, and delegate their children's education hoping everything will turn out alright, only reacting years later when Johnny can't read, write, or do math?
I hold parents and citizens at large just as much if not more responsible for the dismal state of public education. We as citizens have not taken ownership and held the public education bureaucracy accountable.
As part of my effort to take ownership, I attend, actively participate in, analyze, and report on Valley View School District 365U school board meetings. My goal is to inform and empower VVSD 365U education stakeholders to take action as owners not just consumers of public education.