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Next week Kump Education Center will host two opportunities to think more creatively about the challenges of rural education. On Wednesday, April 30 at 7 p.m., we will host Dr. Deborah Stiles, a Randolph-born West Virginian and Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Stiles will lead a humorous presentation entitled "Elbows Up ?!?: A Conversation on Canada."
Everyone is welcome to join us for the First Friday Focus on Education meeting held May 2 at 4 p.m. in the Learning Lab for the purpose of considering new ideas for local schools. We do not pretend to have all the answers to the many problems that plague rural communities as they lose population, but we hope to help find creative and positive approaches to rural education and family economics.
I am encouraged by a creative idea to improve the middle school learning experiences announced in The Inter-Mountain last Saturday. Randolph County BOE approved two new $96K "makerspace" initiatives at Elkins and Tygart Valley Middle Schools to be paid for by an anonymous donor. According to Edgar Kelley's report, "A makerspace is a creative learning environment that provides students with opportunities to explore, build, and create using a range of materials and tools."
This sort of creative community intervention is what we have been hoping to see, and it reminds me of what Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said last week. "For the time being we are well-positioned to wait for greater clarity" about the impact of policy changes.
This was his explanation for not moving more quickly to change interest rates until economists have seen what happens after so many policy changes made in immigration, taxation, and tariffs.
The concept of being "well-positioned to wait for greater clarity" is not an idea that one would expect to hear about in the fast-moving pace of American life these days. Nevertheless, economists know that it takes time to sort out the effects of changes that have been ordered by a new government. For this same reason, educators need to take time to assess the effects of school choice and other cultural issues on public education.
Teachers and parents are coming to the end of the academic year, and they need to see how well our students perform on assessments of academic performance, attendance, and behavior. Although we have been seeing lower test scores, and the numbers of students and teachers have declined in Randolph County for several years, I have hope that we can gain "greater clarity" and make better decisions to improve the quality of education in our schools.
The most important issue now is to get good, reliable and complete educational assessment information throughout the state of West Virginia and begin to consider it in the way Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell would do "with greater clarity" instead of political pressure.