LAST POST - HAVE YOU READ ALL THE OTHERS FIRST? When Will It Get Hard?

IF YOU ARE SEEING THIS POST FIRST, SCROLL DOWN TO THE INITIAL POST TITLED INTRODUCTION  
READ THE POSTS FROM OLDEST TO NEWEST FOR MAXIMUM CONTRIBUTION AND VALUE TO YOU.  

THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS BLOG.  WE WILL DOCUMENT ALL THE QUESTIONS FOR OTHERS WHO WERE UNABLE TO ATTEND IN HOPES OF CONTINUING THE DIALOGUE.  


DO YOUR PART; ACTIVATE YOUR WILL AND EFFORTS TODAY!

Although the photo to the right is humorous and obviously "staged", it illustrates the fact that it will take work for the Speak Up initiative to be successful.  Debbie and her team have set great ideas in motion but it will take the efforts of all the leadership team to make this more than just "talk".

An important question to answer is:

if we aren't engaged at the onset (do you know what to do?), how will we respond as community leaders when the going gets tough?

Will Speak Up be just one more ineffective, half-hearted effort at improving our schools or will it represent a revolution addressing needs, challenges, and apathy?  
The fact that there was a large group attending the Economic and Education Forum showed there are folks in our community interested in education but not everyone has even been invited to the "dialogue" table yet.

How will we involve others?

One of the questions the Pritchard Committee struggled with is their continued role.  Would it be pursuing school reform in the abstract?  Or would it move to more specific strategies for change?

We in Madison County have the same questions to answer.  What do you think?  Are there pros and/or cons to either approach?

Does Speak Up lead to positioning the Schools Foundation in a larger and more permanent role that impacts change in Madison County and leads the way in school reform (from an outside to an inside position)?

What about continued funding to support this next step?  Do we need it?  Should we take it?