The Need for an Education Week in Every City!

Cities have Restaurant Weeks, Beer Weeks and even Museum Weeks, so WHY not Education Weeks?

It would be epic: Have the city host ALL state conferences for a week. Schools could host community events to showcase all the awesomeness that is going on. Businesses could observe the educational process and open their wallets to offer assistance in areas of need. It would be a festival of all things education! Teachers would pitch their ideas to crowds of people who would readily help make the ideas turn into reality.

SO WHY isn’t this happening?

Education always is a main pillar of all political platforms. Businesses desire to locate themselves in areas with educated populations. The idea behind the “theme” weeks is to drum up business for the city. Typically these weeks are placed on the calendar during “down” times to help promote business and allow capitol to flow. An Education week would cost that valuable capitol. Sadly, most in the community feel their tax dollars are enough to support it.

Education needs to be celebrated in the same way as restaurants, beer, museums or anything else in our society. DO we have Education City USA? No but we have a beer city USA! What does this show about our societies values?

There is a dire need for society to CELEBRATE and VALUE education, instead of it being the running joke on the late night talk shows. (We have all seen the guy on the street asking questions to adults that 5th graders can answer but adults can’t.) The time has come to show our values and hold them up, not complain.

Teachers are doing their jobs! Society is not holding up their end. Education shouldn’t be a complaint. Companies that see weaknesses in our current system should be offering up funds to fill the gaps and create equity. Instead they complain and say: “We have jobs but nobody educated to fill them!” That is a sad statement: Most of these jobs they have weren’t around 5 to 10 years ago so HOW could our education system create employees for them? What have companies done to fix this? (Besides lobbying for laws that ruin ed?)

Our educational leaders need to step up, GO OUT and show the great stuff we are doing in schools. Offer businesses avenues to assist in creating equity in our schools. THE TIME IS NOW, IF NOT YOU, WHO?

First step: WE need a Ed Week in major cities to start the ball rolling!