At the Closing General Session, Claudio Sanchez, education correspondent for National Public Radio, moderated a lively panel discussion on a wide range of education topics. The panelists included Linda Chavez, a writer and speaker on civil rights and multiculturalism; Stephen Goldstein, a futurist and author; Carole Simpson of ABC News; and Juan Williams of the Washington Post.
"If you could change one thing in schools, what would it be?" Sanchez asked the panelists.
"The easy answer to that question is accountability," Williams said. "And with accountability, you've got to give administrators and teachers some freedom so that they can be fairly held accountable."
"As a parent, I want to know that my child is being educated to the best of his or her ability to learn," Williams continued. "Parents, as the consumers of education, have to believe they can hold principals and teachers accountable, and fairly so, for what's going on in that classroom."
Chavez singled out discipline. "If children cannot learn self-control, if children cannot learn that there are certain ways of behaving in an institutional setting, if children cannot learn to respect each other and to respect authority figures, they will fail," she asserted. "If you do not have those personal qualities when you go through education, your life is going to be much more difficult, and you're going to make life difficult for those around you."
"I would change budgeting priorities," Goldstein said. "I would fund teachers and teachers' needs first. What's left over can go to administration." Nor should administrators be allowed to leave teaching, he insisted. "I would require that each administrator teach something, no matter how small. And I would see to it that no administrator earned more than the highest-paid teacher."
Simpson focused on society's need to change. "We need everybody flocking to the schools to provide whatever help they can," she said. "If schools are falling apart and there's no budget to fix them, then businesses ought to get in there and fix up the physical plant." Churches and civic organizations should also lend their support to schools, she urged. "It takes all of us if we're going to change this. So it's not just the school, it's not just the teacher—it's got to be the entire society."