By Heather Graves
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – The League of Women Voters of Greater Green Bay, in connection with the Patricia Marguerite O’Neill Memorial Fund, hosted Dr. Julie Fisher Mead, a professor with UW–Madison’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, for a discussion on the future of public education.
A few dozen educators, parents, college students and community members attended the event at Washington Middle School Tuesday, Sept. 24, which focused on enhancing dialogue on the future of public education.
During the presentation, Mead discussed the history of how public education got to where it is today.
“Not only the State of Wisconsin, but all 50 states, have determined that public education is not just a discretionary act that legislators can do, but in fact, public education is a primary purpose of state government,” she said. “They recognize the essential requirement of a public education.”
Mead said all elected officials have a role in education policy formation.
“Whether we are talking about someone at the school board level, whether we are talking about those we elect to represent us in the State Assembly, whether we are talking about our state-elected superintendent of public instruction, whether we are talking about our governor, our United States Senators, representatives we send to Congress or the president – all of those people have a role, as do we, in policy formation around education,” she said.
Mead said the relative importance in education may weigh in on how voters decide to cast their ballots.
“We hold folks accountable by those votes,” Mead said. “We also hold schools accountable by the laws that, those we elect to represent us, create – and that’s true at the federal level, that’s true at the state level and of course our local school boards and the policies they adopt are kind of a form of local law.”
She stressed continued discussion is necessary by educators and policymakers to continue looking for new and innovative ways to improve public education.
Mead used examples from her public education experiences, as well as those of her daughters, on how things have changed over the years.
“Collectively, through those that represent us, we redefine from time-to-time what it means to be educated and what needs to be part of a fully-educated person,” she said. “Of course, we also decide on the standards of that education.”
Mead highlighted what she defined as the five standards of public education – public purpose, public funding, public access, public accountability of communities and public curriculum.
“If you think about those as the terms of the values that undergird our public systems, how do we describe and defend those? Public schools serve everyone, public schools are accountable, strong public schools make strong communities and public schools are the cornerstone of democracy,” she said.
Mead said education is a situation where satisfaction is never attainable and it never should be.
“As we interrogate the ideas that people have about changing the system, it’s my view that these are the things that we need to be debating,” Mead said. “We have a lot of work to do to make these places the kind of places that our kids deserve to be, but overall, we still have this very special thing called public education.”
Tuesday’s event was free and open to the public and started with a social hour with hors d’oeuvres and ended with a question and answer period.