Hi!
eLearningi [0] Task Force: Tomorrow August 10, 2007 - 10:00 to Noon.
Rm 417, Arizona Department of Education, 1535 West Jefferson Road, Phoenix
Our Governor Janet Napolitano wrapped up her tenure of president at the National Governor’s Association with a call to innovate with science, math, engineering and technology.
Fifty years ago this October Russian Sputnik I jarred the US into a crash program to improve math and science K-12 education. I was an undergraduate at MIT when I heard the news at an “acquaintance dance.” MIT’s Lincoln Lab tracked itsi [0] orbit, and a sophomore took a picture of the trailing booster from his dorm roof. My Aeronautics department immediately changed its name to Aeronautics and Astronautics. Test problems changed to calculating how big a rocket would be needed to put the Physics Building 10 into orbit! Five years later the best-prepared classes ever admitted to MIT started arriving.
Today it is China and a host of other emerging countries that are providing the global competitive challenge. K-12 NEAP scores have been virtually flat for years. Unfortunately we cannot order up a “Sputnik moment” whenever we need it.
A better and more lasting model for large systems innovation was provided by Churchill and Roosevelt in the mid to late 1930’s. They foresaw the Winds of War emerging in Europe and the Far East. They built the foundations for military buildup and infrastructure. They were “ready enough” when the invasion of Poland and then Pearl Harbor proved the sputnik moment.”
Our legislators, governance, education and business communities are beginning to realize the dead end that incrementalism is bringing to our state. Arizona needs to seize the opportunity to breakout and create the sputnik moment for the rest of the US and world. The focus should be in three major economic-societal areas. We continue to be one step behind in K-12 education, entrepreneurial enterprise cluster grow and supporting our major high tech industries.
Fortunately there are movements afoot to development Arizona system innovations that are orthogonal to both Arizona’s current path and the rest of the world:
For K-12 it is transforming our schools to eLearning in the classroom which will bump up academic performancei [0] a letter grade for all Arizona students.
Entrepreneurial enterprise could blow by San Diego and other biotech centers by supporting development of a cluster of enterprises that dominate on computational bioscience business.
For our large company high tech clusters like aerospace (Honeywell, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, Orbital Sciences, Hamilton Sunstrand, Jet Products Company, etc.) it is less clear. Arizona needs to support a 21st century orthogonal breakout of dominance vs. SoCal, Washington State, Kansas, Texas or Long Island. Arizona Tech Council may find the answer with its new Aerospace and Defense Industry Association www.aztechcouncil.org [1] ,
With a K-12 system that is graduating students both savvy and motivated in 21st century science, technology, engineering and math long range economic breakouts become possible.