News - Local News

POSTED: Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008

Schools need to reduce regulation, change funding, business leaders told

BELLINGHAM - Education reform is necessary for the United States to remain a strong player on the world stage, according to Lynn Harsh, the CEO of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

"This is a bipartisan problem," she told a group of 70 people at the Northwest Business Club's monthly meeting Wednesday, Nov. 12. "We have to stop electing people who won't take it seriously."

Harsh urged the group of local business and education people to start working toward change or there won't be skilled employees to hire anymore or intelligent individuals to lead the country.

At the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit public policy research group, Harsh has spent several years supervising the organization's education research, meeting with state education leaders and policy-makers.

She described the education system in Washington state as a large business that has hundreds of pages of regulations, 80 percent of its budget tied up in union-bargained contracts, money that isn't accounted for and a pay scale that doesn't account for skills.

"Too few of our best and brightest are called into education," said the former teacher and principal. "And many who do leave because they're frustrated."

Harsh gave six areas of the education system that need to be fixed for it to be "excellent":

? Reduce the regulations so schools can be more flexible to fit their students' needs.

? Change the funding model so that more money goes directly to the school and the public is "subsidizing the student" rather than the institution.

? Attract high-quality teachers who might otherwise go into a higher-paying field by changing the pay scale and letting teachers be "free agents."

? Decrease the number of certifications and "artificial barriers" required to become a teacher so that people with degrees in other subjects can enter the field.

? Always shoot for excellence, not mediocrity.

? Increase parent involvement at all schooling levels.

"People don't change easily. We will stay with the status quo... if the alternative doesn't seem safer to us," she said. "We're trying to convince people the status quo is not good for them, not good for children, not good for education and not good for the country."

Audience members quietly listened to Harsh, asking a few clarifying questions about how they could make a difference.

In Harsh's opinion, the best way to reform education is for everyone to make small changes that are easy for them, like contacting a legislator.

"Find the easy button," she said. "Those little things add up and then you have a movement on your hands."