My experiences in the ILP have felt random a few times before.  First I had to make my own RPG Maker game, and now I am trying to work on Dr. Java at a special college.  So, it's not always clear to me.  The old ILP jobs weren't very fun, and the new ones are, but they are hard and confusing.  But I still think this is better than the old ILP.

Back in September Janice I. Solkov was brought in to be a new Principle for Morton McMichael Elemntary. She was hired by the state to manage the 20 lowest performing schools. Dr. Solkov was from the suburbs with an idea to change it all. Her idea was to privatize Edison. After 3 months into the school year and everything was starting to fall apart. The idea of privatizing public schools was a good idea but it just wouldn’t be possible in Philadelphia. For example Dr. Solkov wanted every student to have a computer to be able to use. That wasn't possible because she was only allowed to spend $880 per student. So those computers never materialized. Dr.Solkov was also never given an accountant which was promised to handle funds, or the second school secretary so she wouldn’t have to type her own meeting minutes and letters. She wasn’t even allowed to paint the school's peeling walls, or open the school library because of the lack of funds.

It was a big mess and after 4 months left the veteran principle in her office in tears. I've also done a little research on Dr. Solkov on whether she really was capable or not. It says that Dr. Solkov is 50 years old with a doctorate in education and has 30 years worth of experience.  She even turned down an offer to be a suburban school administrator. She was described by her Edison recruiter as ''extraordinarily talented, with an outstanding track record for success.''

    In the past twenty years the rate of respect in class rooms have decreased at a unmeasured rate. Classroom curriculum has become less instructive and more of a place to hang out than learn. The environment of class room makes students believe that since there is no learning going then what is the difference between home and school. This confusion is most likely the cause of the rising of people not continuing after high school. The rate at which people are deciding not to continue after high school to go on to college. There are many possible to improve the rate but, few have actually been addressed. I have been through many and many websites and seen ways in which to improve what happens in high school. The adjective that continues to be reproduced is the power of education. The power of Education as said by Henry Peter, Lord Brougham "The Present State of the Law" "Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave."

     My english benchmark is on teachers and how they can improve learning by caring for their students. As a student I have seen teachers that do not value the feelings of their students. As a result of the teachers not caring, the students do not succeed by not putting the students first. All the teachers care about is the end result. Teachers need to really care.  They should not just say that they care, but they must show it through their actions also. This was one of the solutions suggested about how education can be improved by taking time out and have meaningful conversations with other teachers to see where things are going and what changes are being made. 

"And I don't know... but maybe we are really overthinking some of the school reform stuff. Maybe the best thing we can do is make our profession transparent... talk about what works -- and what doesn't. Structure some great, honest conversations and then take the time to ask ourselves -- "Now what?"

- Chris Lehmann 

Check out Chris Lehmanns' blog to read more about changes in public schools:

 http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity/