Change.gov, President-Elect Barack Obama's new website, has started a Citizen's Briefing Book. Similar to this site, the Briefing Book is an opportunity for citizens to submit ideas to President-Elect Obama. Ideas with the most votes will be presented to President Obama after he takes office.

Please go to http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/
sign-in, search for my idea, "Best Public Education Policy Practice" and hit the Vote Up button next to the title.

Here is the idea I submitted:

Best Public Education Policy Practice Current harmful public education policy includes privatization of public schools through a competitive free-market approach to education; grade retention/social promotion; seclusion rooms/corporal punishment/suspensions/arrest; and standardized high stakes tests as a sole accountability measure.

The best policy counterparts to the above are: ending the free-market experiment and providing equitable resources for ALL schools; promotion plus intervention and support for the student; formative behavior assessments and intervention plans that go beyond the behavior and address its causes; and best teaching and learning practices (including individualized education programs for ALL students, cooperative learning, literature circles, writing workshops, inquiry learning, independent study, and socratic seminars), coupled with school, district, and teacher-based assessments (including portfolios, celebrations of learning, teacher made tests, and presentations).

We need to end the two-tiered public education system (some charter,magnet, optional schools vs. all the rest of the schools) in America. Please vote for all children in every neighborhood school to have best practices in their districts.