Thursday, October 27, 2011

Town hall participants: Clarify role of family in school reform | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com

Town hall participants: Clarify role of family in school reform | The Des Moines Register | DesMoinesRegister.com:

Town hall participants: Clarify role of family in school reform

Iowans worry vagueness will cause other goals to fall by the wayside.

Rural southwest Iowans told Gov. Terry Branstad on Wednesday that they want more specifics about the role families and community members would play in the state’s education reform efforts, with one superintendent making a pitch for local control over school improvement tactics.

“Ownership needs to be given at the local level,” Harlan Superintendent Justin Wagner told the governor during a town hall meeting in Greenfield. “… You’ve done the hard work of creating the conversation. Now put it back into the hands of those school boards, those administrators, those teachers to decide what fits for their district and what doesn’t.”

The gathering was one of more than a dozen planned throughout