"The American Educational Bureaucracy as the French Army."

During the Twentieth Century, the French Army gained the reputation of being the best-prepared army to fight and win the last war. Their leaders always seemed to be out of step with the current direction of technology. During the First European War (1914-1918) they were prepared to demonstrate the élan of the Nineteenth Century and a generation of Frenchmen died on the battlefield. As a result of German violations of Belgium neutrality in 1914, French troops sat paralyzed behind the massive Maginot line (1940) as German troops raced around them and conquered France.(The Thickness of the Concrete on the Maginot Line- http://www.infowar.com/mil_c4i/strass.ht... )

The American educational bureaucracy does not have the flexibility to keep pace with the exponential rate of technological changes taking place in the cyber-workshop. Most schools have committed themselves to a four or five year capital program designed to wire the their schools into the net. (Hopefully, when they get there they will have some idea of what they are doing with the with this rapidly evolving media.) Just imagine--they are budgeted to be ready to fully engage in four or five years! This is an eternity in today's technology. By definition, they will be ready to fight several wars ago when they get to the full implementation of their ed/tech manifesto. This will insure instant irrelevancy and a tremendous waste of resources.(cyberspace in Education- http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/... )

Just visualize what has gone on since their decision to commit to the ed/tech policy following a year of committee reports, public hearings and first and second public readings of their proposed capital expenditure plan. Will they be employing cable capable of broadband transmission, does their equipment have wireless information delivery capacity, and fifty other changes that my neophyte's mind can only speculate are on the horizon?

The mental picture this dilemma creates is that of an elephant tiptoeing through a minefield. The time period for change in the cyber world is decreasing at an ever-increasing rate of speed, while the latest accountability movement in the schools demands the participation of broader based community constituencies and therefore a slower response time. The voucher movement will consume both time and effort to allow the private and public educational institutions to battle it out over who is more effective at preparing students for anachronistic tests. Now my elephant is tiptoeing through the minefield teaching sleeping knights to battle non-existent dragons.(Education in a New Era- http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/books/br... )

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