Bill Gates recently stated that American high schools are obsolete and need to be reinvented. I agree. My name is
John Mullenix and I want to talk to you about education
and schools as I have experienced them. Having taught junior/senior high and college biology for over thirty years, today, Feb. 25, 2005, I leave the public classroom and set sail into uncharted waters. My ship is this company, Curriculum Innovations, in construction since 1996. With you and the three other members of our company, I hope to participate in the improvement of American schools.

Must we scrap our public school system and start over? Absolutely not! America’s system of public education is our greatest achievement. No other country is more committed to giving every member of its society a quality education. More than anyone, we face extreme racial/cultural diversity and lethargy generated by prosperity, yet no country honors individual differences of belief and ability to the extent we do.

So then, what’s wrong? Simply this, a majority of our students fall far short of their academic potential. Seldom do they realize this has happened. Students actually believe they can’t do the work and then rationalize that it is not important. Self-doubt grows where confidence should abound. Self imposed limits narrow possible futures. It’s not that dreams are stifled, but that they never occur. It not that goals for bright and challenging futures are not realized, but rather, they are not set.

Maybe I am just one of those old teachers who wants to “fight the war” from my porch. but by the power of the internet, through Curriculum Innovations, I think we can join the battle for universal student success.

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