PS 21 - Public Schools for the 21st Century

About PS 21

    Public schools have their roots in the information and disciplines, social and economic conditions, and organizational practices of the late 19th century. While public education has remained relatively constant over the last 50 years or more, our country and communities have been affected by dramatic demographic changes, an information explosion and technological revolution, altered workplaces and family structures, and a shrinking world and global economy.
     What do these changes mean for public education and for our community?
     How do these changes affect the purpose of schooling, what an educated citizen must know and be able to do, who attends school, the kind of personal and community support children experience, public commitment to education, what takes place in the classroom, and how educators approach teaching and learning?
     The PS21 project was designed to help our community think about schools for the future. How do we need to shift our thinking so we can reshape our schools so that our children are well prepared to face the challenges of the 21st Century?
     In January of 1996 Reaching Heights, in collaboration with the Superintendent, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Board of Education, the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union and the Council of PTAs, launched Public Schools for the 21st Century.

The speakers included:

1. Harold Hodgkinson , January 17, 1996
   "Who will be the Students in the 21st Century and Why they Must Succeed"
   
2. Alan November, March 6, 1996
   "Technology, Education, and the Future: What Parents, Educators and the Community Need to Know"
   
3. Hedrick Smith, September 25, 1996
   "Rethinking America: How Innovators in Schools and Businesses Are Responding to a Global Economy"
   
4. Linda Darling-Hammond, April 4, 1997
   "Redesigning Schools to Focus on Student and Teacher Learning"
   
5. Cong. Major Owens, April 22, 1997
   "The Education emergency in Public Schools: the Need for a total Opportunity To Learn"
   
6. Dr. Lorraine Monroe, December 9, 1998
   "What is the Mission? What is the Work?"
   
7. Victor Young, January 28, 1999
   "Who is Responsible for High Levels of Learning for All Children?"
   
8. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, February , 1999
   "Raising Academically Successful African American Males"
   

1. Public schools in the 21st Century need to do something they were not designed to do: provide to all children high levels of learning.
   
2. We must think "outside the box" when looking for solutions.
   
3. Differences in age, income, race, and nation of origin, access to technology and information threaten to divide and fragment our society.
   
4. We can and must reshape public schools to meet the needs of our changing world.
   
5. We already know many of the changes that will produce results if we want to use them.