Wednesday's Education Forum brought together 150 proven leaders in the business and educational communities in Wake County.  The goal was to raise knowledge and awareness about world-class education in Wake County, as well as convene these leaders for their best thinking through facilitated discussion on the theme.

Speakers and Topics

The event's keynote speaker, H. Martin Lancaster, president of the North Carolina Community College System, delivered an address on the theme “Think Globally, Learn Locally: How Do We Promote World-Class Education in Wake County?”  John Dornan, president of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, Ted Fiske, former education editor of the New York Times and Delores Parker, vice president for Academic and Student Affairs for the North Carolina Community College System, provided information and addressed questions about education from the North Carolina and global perspectives.

Compilation of Results

Each table was given three questions to answer during the faciliated discussion portion of the program. There has been no editing or alteration whatsoever to the input received.  It is being presented and shared in the format it was written at each table.  The top responses chosen by each table are listed below.  If multiple tables had the same first choice response, it is only listed once. 

What will our world look like in 2020?

• more diversified population
• higher tech and more evenly distributed
• intellectual capacity more distributed
• continuing issues with war, famine and environmental issues
• Local economy will be more urban, strong, high tech, more dense and cosmopolitan.
• greater competition from around the world
• ease of travel between countries, more mobile, “blurred country borders”
• live longer, more healthy, work longer
• speaking and communicating in a language other than English
• economy more service industry related
• more well-rounded culture
• Technology is key to society.  Current training is not sufficient.
• We could lose our economic edge.

What will a world-class, globally-competitive graduate need to know and be able to do?

• continue skill acquisition (lifelong)
• ability to communicate, strong interpersonal communications skills, reach out to diverse populations
• critical thinking skills, ability to validate information
• higher level thinkers, ability to work as a team
• understand what the “global economy” is and how it is going to impact students
• ability to bring disparate subjects together to understand the system (knowledge integration)
• sound basic liberal arts education (foundation)
• collaborate in a multi-cultural environment; global teaming
• higher proficiency in a specialized area, ability to adapt
• multi-cultural fluency (language, culture, history and government)
• having the capacity to think about other cultures and how they live

How do we make this happen?

• take advantage of the country’s diversity in educational approaches to research best practices, re-examine time spent in school
• sell stakeholders (parents, teachers, administration, elected officials) on changes that need to take place in the philosophy of teaching (convincing, then acting)
• Vision without a strategic plan is a hallucination, so we need visionary leadership across and between the public and private sectors.
• treat education leaders as professionals
• community expectations –shift has to happen now, educate parents on what their kids need to be successful (Finding the “WE”)
• how we frame the teacher work year (12 month profession)
• make teaching a respected profession, budget is a reflection of values
• increase funding in education (personnel and support for teachers)
• hire teachers well, empower them and encourage them to focus on the individual student
• work to decrease the drop-out rate
• Tyranny of the urgent takes from what is important (use of time in the classroom/school).

Describe the most powerful “a-ha” moment shared during your discussion.

• The US must make the necessary systemic, political and cultural changes needed to be competitive.
• the need to balance hard and soft skills, perseverance necessary to give a methodology time to bear fruit
• The profession of teaching will need to be dramatically different.
• How do we as Americans fit into the world in reference to education?
• We must find the “WE” to improve our education system.
• education, community, business interdependence
• We have to do the work ourselves.
• identify best practices and put them in place
• unified vision of government, work and education
• With newcomers in our communities, we represent the global society. 
• We must unite and get everyone together to move forward. 

Conclusions

The 2008 Ed Forum, sponsored by Wake Education Partnership, was the beginning of many community wide discussions around the issue of global competition. Based on the speakers' presentations, we can conclude that in the United States, on most measures, the academic achievement levels in K-12 education are mediocre in comparison to the world.

The citizens of Wake County must work closely with the Wake County Public School System to determine what steps are necessary to ensure that its youngest citizens can compete in the future world market. We know that we need to make improvements in how we are preparing our children for the future and leaders must continue to define what world-class public education is. If one walks into a school, can they recognize that the students are receiving a world-class public education that is preparing them for the global economy? What resources are needed to make our schools world-class? Does a world-class public education even exist?

There is no formal definition for a world-class public education, but in Wake County, we need to define it in concrete terms. We need to come to a consensus and agree that this is what we want for our children. The Partnership, along with the citizens of Wake County, will work to take the resources we have available and turn the "blueprint" for a world-class public education into a reality for all children.

Thank you to Rex Healthcare, Williams Mullen Maupin Taylor and SchenkelSchultz Architecture for sponsoring the 2008 Education Forum!