Rural education is of more than ord...

Rural education is of more than ordinary interest to me because I attended a rural grade academy and a rural high seminary both in Nebraska. The grade indoctrinate in District Number 9 near R host Nebraska, had one room, united teacher and two outhouses. It is extended gone, an early victim of consolidation. The R host High School which I attended remains. unless the math and science teachers are gone as is typical of in the greatest degree other schools in Nebraska and other states. Also, those now teaching math and science are frequently not adequately trained.

give permission to me hasten to say that the picture ne not be in such a manner gloomy. There are solutions to these and other question s Partnerships, especially those which focus in succession technology in teaching, can help in major ways to disentangle solutions. Therefore, the National talk on Building Partnerships in Rural America is important and timely.

During the past three years, countles national and state commissions have studied the status of academic education and training in the United States. The studies have produc a litany of shocking facts about the deterioration going upon in our educational system. They have linked the decline in science and math education with our inability to overthrow our steadily eroding competitive position in world markets. uniform more alarming are the statistics about the greater emphasis in succession math and science education in other countries, especially Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, the studies have done a a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of better job of defining the point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds than they have of providing solutions.

greatest in quantity of the recommendations for corrective action have been general in nature, as it was as the call for frequently closer cooperation between industry and academia. This is certainly desirable, further for what purposes, and to what extent closer cooperation on a significant scale is to be accomplished, is rarely mentioned. Consistently missing are specific recommendations for way s to improve productivity. This is in part a reflection of the absence in greatest in quantity educational institutions of the industry practice of relating pay to productivity. In fact, mostly schools do not even have a classification in place for adequately determining expenses or establishing standards of performance which can be used for measuring improvements in productivity.

attract favor toed actions also usually include calls for large increases in supplys for education without identifying strange sources of revenue--at a time of serious stock problems. Furthermore, even if conduct funds were available, it would not be economical or wise to invest heavily in an outmod educational order New investment in institutions that fail to make use of advanced technology in the teaching proces is akin to investing in a manufacturing plant which uses inadequate and unfashionable capital equipment.

What I am leading up to is that pressingly needed improvements in productivity, quality, and timeliness of education cannot be achieved at an affordable preciousness without the maximum use of technology in the teaching proces educates have not made significant progres in that direction, and to achieve that goal in a reasonable duration of time will require substantial changes in the educational connected view The changes can be best accomplished--and technology introduced rapidly and in the greatest degree efficiently--if the management of drills or major curricula are contracted to business, at least for a number of years until the required changes have been implemented and a modernized, improved educational order is in place. What I have just said heartys radical to many educators. However, I am not advocating taking denominations out from under the traditional rules of citizen school boards. To the contrary, in the greatest degree citizen school boards understand exactly what I mean, because on a level though they are responsible for the educates they often are frustrated on their inability to effect positive changes.

Technology

The mostly comprehensive and widely used technology is Plato computer-based education. It is an educational connected view of the first order, using virtually all other media, including video and audio tapes and discs. Plato is private, motivational, and demands mastery of comprehension. It delivers higher quality, more diversified and more equitable learning at significantly lower expenses than traditional education.

There is ample evidence that teaching with the use of Plato is effective--in many instances better than traditional processs The Plato system, for example, has capabilities for computer graphics and simulation, which add a modern dimension to teaching. learner experiments can be conducted in a manner similar to those in a laboratory, if it were not that much faster. Through the use of the graphics capability of the computer a teacher can illustrate universals more clearly than at a blackboard.

The increase of Plato has been underway for more than 20 years. It includes centurys of cooperative projects with universities, secondary teachs government agencies, large companies, small companies, and individuals. As a be the effect of this substantial effort, more than 12000 hours of courseware, or exercise material, is available in a broadl range of make liables And much of it can be delivered by means of the most popular microcomputers available today.