Civic Leaders Engage in Challenging Education Reform Discussion Thursday

Local educators, business leaders and philanthropists joined a discussion about education reform at a book launch at Caltech’s Athenaeum Thursday co-hosted by an extended learning organization which serves over 100,000 children in 38 school districts.

Centered on the discussion of Randy Barth’s new book: “THINK Together: How YOU can play a role in improving education in America,” KTLA’s Chris Schauble led a lively panelist conversation that offered creative solutions to the rut of education systems in the U.S.

“I think we’re having the wrong conversation about education. So much of the education fight is about unions versus charters. The focus ought to be what’s working and how do we grow that so kids get the benefit,” Barth, Founder and CEO of THINK Together said.

Schauble was joined by two other panelists: former Pasadena City Manager Cynthia Kurtz, who now heads the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership, and Robin Avelar La Salle, Ph.D., CEO of Principal’s Exchange

The San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership co-hosted the event.

The three panelists challenged the idea that statistics can be explained away by expecting less from certain populations – namely Latinos, African Americans, and people with special needs.

“If we don’t challenge the inevitably assumptions, if we are not willing to be equity warriors on behalf of everybody’s babies so that everybody gets the same education we would give our own, they we’re complicit,” Robin Avelar La Salle, CEO of Principal’s Exchange said.

Rather than one silver bullet, Barth says a good education for every student takes a stable school board, good leadership on each level, and should be data driven. It requires learning organizations that build coherent systems.

The ultimate goal at THINK Together is for every student to be college ready, whether the student goes to college or not.

“Randy’s book really resonated. To me it was ‘surround sound.’ We need to have everyone engaged, its like being in a room and the music has to come out from everywhere and that’s from the community and from businesses,” Kurtz said.

In the San Gabriel Valley, 22.2 percent of the population over 25 do not have high school degrees, according to Kurtz. Kurtz works to overcome this statsistic by creating partnerships between schools and employers in order to create a prepared work force.

THINK Together says it has found that kids with the right support system can do what it takes.