Creating an education information center for interested citizens

From email:

Transforming ineffective institutions isn't easy in the best of times. But I don't see the kind of effort comparable to that which has calved off from the Chicago Reporter organization:
• Catalyst Chicago School Reform
• Catalyst Cleveland School Reform

Although I will say, without having children, I haven't been clued into all the various efforts over the years.

I was thinking about this today in fact. Dallas has an "Urban Information Center" in the main branch of their library, designed to strengthen the knowledge base for urban revitalization efforts there on the part of citizens and other stakeholders.

I want to start reading Education Week to become more knowledgeable about the issues, although I can't necessarily afford to subscribe today. They get it at DCPL, but it's hard to use materials in the Govt. and Ed. sections of MLK.

Why not have an Education Information Center too, comparable to Dallas' UIC? It doesn't have to be just Friere and Giroux, but could have a focused collection and a wide variety of materials. (Rethinking Schools, Radical Teacher, discipline based publications and materials, the School Board Journal, handbooks, etc.)

In any case, Education Week needs to be subscribed to by more of the public libraries around the city.

I will admit my bias towards deliberative democracy... that it's helpful to know stuff, not to just spout off. And knowledge isn't enough either, you have to be willing to work with and engage others, get into it.

But we could and should do better, not just vis-a-vis the schools, but all other aspects of the city in terms of land use planning, public finance, democracy and participation and civic engagement, etc.

Oh this reminds me. Many years ago I knew someone who had come to the US from Morocco and he was taking ESL. The textbook they used was pretty tough in terms of the reading and exercise level I thought, because it was about civic engagement and participation. I remember looking at the book and thinking it was too bad that everyone didn't have a class like this.

(from an old blog entry)

Textbook that teaches English as a Second Language, Communicating Effectively in English (1992), by Patricia A. Porter and Margaret Grant, then of San Francisco State University.

I don't envy the non-native English speakers who are assigned this text. It's a great book (see below) but it's written at the high school level, or beyond. The preface is written for teachers, not students.This textbook looks like a basic text in citizenship-involvement--it teaches communications skills through participation in civil society. It's really quite interesting and amazing and worth your looking up.

The units are:

1. Understanding your audience and being understood
2. Getting Information: Interviews and Conferences
3. Providing Information: Instructions and Demonstrations
4. Providing Information: Group Discussions and Presentations
5. Proposing Changes: Solving a Problem
6. Persuading Others: Taking a Position.

From the preface: "In the first three units, students work with information that is known to them or learned through interviews. In the last three units, students must work with information from more challenging outside sources, such as articles and reference materials in the library. The first four units focus on informative presentations, while the last two include expanded guidelines and practice in argumentation."

Now if we could only get native speakers of "American" to learn this methodology...