Candidate for
Board Member; Santa Clara County Board of Education; Trustee Area 1

EDUCATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY HAS NOT KEPT PACE

In the last decade, the information technology (IT) revolution has swept the U.S. creating great productivity improvements and an exploding stock market for most industries. But there has been one glaring exception - public schools, even though that is where IT ought to have had its greatest impact on productivity. After all, except for a few kinds of skills like sports and music that require both mental and physical learning, isn't knowledge primarily the conveying of information? And that's what IT is ideal for. With computer based IT systems - information can be tirelessly put before students and they can be tested repeatedly until they learn whatever material is being taught. And IT can replace traditional teaching and administrative paperwork with less costly and time consuming computerized systems.

Yet our public schools appear to have been immune to the productivity advances experienced by other industries. While other industries have produced dramatically more output with less workers, the public school bureaucracy keeps saying it needs more money and more teachers. I say what it needs is better management to properly apply IT to education and accelerate student learning and test scores with less staff and less cost per student.

MY PHILOSOPHY TO SOLVE THE PUBLIC SCHOOL PROBLEM

• Counseling & Choice: My philosophy on education is that people learn best what interests them; therefore, as much as possible let them choose the subjects that they want to know more about, and only insist that they learn the most basic of knowledge needed to learn and to function in society (such as the 3 R's). They should be counseled early about what subjects they will need to be able work in various occupations, and be trusted to become interested in what they will need - such as biology if hoping to become an MD.

• Use Technology to Teach More for Less: I believe the Information Technology Revolution is not yet being exploited effectively in the public schools, or we'd be seeing better results on test scores. Videos, internet, and computers can teach and test tirelessly with or without a teacher being present, and videos allow lectures by the best teachers in our land. The main requiremnent is a well designed teaching system and a way to strongly motivate students to learn. I believe the latter will come from letting students know early what knowledge they need for different occupations and hobbies, giving the students more choice, and using programs that tend to make learning more fun.

• Use Savings to Solve Staffing: Today the high cost of living in our county presents a problem in hiring teachers and other school personnel. I believe the solution again is technology. Using information technology can permit teaching more students with less teachers who can be paid more, and we can be competetive in attracting teachers from less costly areas not using a similar philosophy.

• Use Technology for More Individualized Teaching: Computers and other electronics are non judgmental and can operate at the speed of each student if we don't insist on always using a class structure for learning (in which the class can only progress at the pace of the slowest students). By a judicious mix of individualized and class-based learning, I believe the best overall test scores could be achieved at less cost per student.