“President Obama traveled to Mooresville, NC to announce ConnectEd, an exciting new initiative designed to help bring America’s students into the digital age. The goal of the ConnectED initiative is to bring high-speed internet connections to 99% of America’s students within five years.”

Though President Obama is unfamiliar with the inherent problems that exist within our current system of education, it is impossible for him to ignore the pockets of success that exist.

James Kvall, Deputy Director of Domestic Policy Council, explains that the President’s new technology initiative, through the use of the internet, “lets students move ahead at their own pace, lets teachers figure out what concepts the class is struggling with, then they can provide individualized attention and can focus their time on the areas where students really need help. It also has great potential to connect classrooms with the rest of world, opening up resources like museums and libraries and other classes and experts no matter how far away that they are.”

The “Show and Tell” featured three schools that use technology in their classrooms to complete projects in which the students themselves were interested.

When asked by the moderator, Betsy Corcoran of EdSurge, about standardized testing the students were happy to report that they didn’t take standardized tests but were assessed on the merits of their projects, what they learned and how they were able to communicate that knowledge to others.

It is evident that President Obama and his leadership are still trapped in a classist mindset, mentioning the “middle class” five times throughout his speech while Mr. Kvall lays out the benefit of this initiative to corporate America.

Acknowledging that a child centered, experiential, consortium learning model works is not the same as insuring that all of America’s children are provided the opportunity to be educated in a child centered system of education.

Without the Constitutionally guaranteed right to a free and excellent child centered public school education there will continue to be only pockets of success in a wardrobe of failure.

All of America’s children deserve our best.

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