>Professor Stone, > >Dick Innes suggested that I write you to get information about your mailing >list for Education Consumers Clearinghouse. > >Dick says you have visited my web site so I assume you know who I am and >where I am coming from as regards education. Assuming this is true, isn't >the Web something in terms of enabling people to get acquainted? Duane, I read much of your material. The Web truly is a remarkable vehicle for getting people acquainted. Although I have been in Johnson City, TN for nearly 25 years, I am from Louisville, I graduated from UK in 1966, and I worked with a "talent search" program out of Morehead State U. in the late sixties. I am trying to do something about education reform through consumer empowerment. We have subscribers who have your concerns (although almost none who have articulated them so well) from all over the U. S. Take a look at the description below. Let me know what you think. Cheers, John AN INTRODUCTION TO THE EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE (c) (rev.10/6/96) The EDUCATION CONSUMER'S CLEARINGHOUSE (c) is an Internet mailing list whose purpose is to empower education's consumers. It serves as a medium for communication and source of consumer-friendly advice and expertise. Subscribers are able to ask questions, post information and opinion, or just listen. It is supported by advertising and free to users. The Clearinghouse is founded on the belief that education's consumers need to access to information and opinion that is independent and sympathetic to their concerns and priorities. Subscribers are limited to parents, concerned citizens, employers, policy makers, taxpayers, and others who invest in and rely on the public schools. Individuals who are both consumers and professional educators (by training or occupation) are welcome but are asked to wear their consumer's hat while participating in the Clearinghouse. The Clearinghouse provides consumers a much needed opportunity to consider local, state, and national issues in education from a consumers point of view. As both a parent and a scholarly observer of efforts to improve education, I have developed an acute appreciation of how the public schools influence both the information provided consumers and the expression of consumer preferences. Not only are the schools a monopoly supplier of education, they monopolize discussions of educational issues at the state and community level. As anyone who has participated in a public discussion of a local educational issue can report, voices friendly to the status quo are recognized and legitimated. Voices that question or dissent are marginalized. It is a frustrating experience. Skeptics find themselves at a considerable disadvantage. The schools profess to be the only competent spokesmen for students' educational needs and they frequently speak in impenetrable jargon. Not only are dissatisfied individuals unable to understand or counter official pronouncements, they often find themselves isolated and their views characterized as poorly informed and extreme. In essence, public discussion of education typically takes place in such a way that there is no credible alternative to the views expressed or endorsed by the schools. Consumers' views are often treated as a nuisance to be circumvented or ignored. Consumers not only lack credibility, they typically lack leadership, organization, and resources. Local school systems, by contrast, have all of the above and as a monopoly, they are able to speak in a unified voice. Consumers have the numbers and potentially overwhelming clout yet they exert relatively little influence with respect to public schools. The Clearinghouse seeks to counter the prevailing imbalance by affording consumers an opportunity to: 1. Share information about educational concerns with like-minded individuals, 2. Stay informed about developments in school reform, 3. Develop consensus and solidarity where possible, and 4. Build EDUCATION CONSUMER ASSOCIATIONS in their local community, state, or region. Unlike that which consumers encounter when they attend a PTA or school board meeting, the Clearinghouse offers subscribers an opportunity to hear about and discuss educational issues in an environment sympathetic to their perspective as consumers. Consumer-friendly opinion and expert analysis is available. Subscribers from a given community, state, or region are encouraged to form local associations analogous to the "consumer action networks" that have formed among electric utility consumers. (According to Consumers' Reports, such a network in Illinois saved electric power customers $4 billion over the last ten years.) As moderator and resident "resource person," I try to aid subscribers by updating on recent developments, interpreting educational jargon, responding to questions about educational issues, providing references to useful sources of information, offering analysis and opinion, and otherwise facilitating the flow of information. I am an Ed.D. graduate of the University of Florida, College of Education (1972), a licensed educational psychologist, and a licensed school psychologist. I have 25 years of experience as professor of teacher education and I am published in the area of educational reform. I have served as a Research Fellow in Education with Tennessee's Andrew Jackson Institute and I am listed in the Heritage Foundation's 1995-96 Directory of Policy Experts as an authority in education. My educational views are known and available for public review. My most recent publication is titled "Developmentalism: An Obscure but Pervasive Restriction on Educational Improvement." It is published in Education Policy Analysis Archives, 4(8), April 23, 1996. EPAA may be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/epaa/ A vita is available on request. Typical Clearinghouse topics are related to subscriber concerns and questions. For example, a local curricular initiative may be given more balanced and better informed scrutiny than is typically the case. Parents or concerned members of a community who want to prepare themselves for discussion of an issue before their local school board are able to call on fellow Clearinghouse subscribers for reflection and advice. Often they will find someone who faced the same issue in their community. School board members who are not satisfied with the policy guidance they are receiving from local educators are able to access information and opinion from the consumer's point of view. Even those issues for which local school personnel traditionally have little enthusiasm--the cost and effectiveness of existing programs, for example--are sometimes addressed. The Clearinghouse enables local education consumers to understand and express themselves on educational issues on a more even footing with the local educational establishment. In broader terms, it is intended as a means of strengthening consumer visibility, credibility, and influence with the media and policy setting bodies. EDUCATION CONSUMERS ASSOCIATIONS (c) are supported by the Clearinghouse as part of this effort. In the longer term, my hope is that the expression of well-informed consumer presences at the local level will enhance the success of both grass root and top-down educational reform initiatives. As matters now stand, policy makers institute change only to have it bureaucratically subverted or politically undermined as political forces wax and wane. For example, several states and localities have enacted result-oriented reforms only to find them implemented in a way that defeats accountability. Such a setback occurred in Kentucky. There, producer-friendly learning measures were permitted to undermine a comprehensive reform effort. Ditto in California and Vermont. Tennessee has begun to experience the same thing. In each of these cases, top-down initiatives have proved difficult to sustain despite the fact that the public's interest was served. The reason is that although the public has been passively receptive to reform, it typically has lacked the understanding, presence, and voice necessary to defend reform. Perhaps the most unique and promising aspect of the Clearinghouse is that it is not one more grant-supported educational "innovation." Instead, it is an entrepreneurial venture in the free market. As such, it is wholly independent of the usual bureaucratic and governmental influences. The Clearinghouse supports itself by charging sponsors for the privilege of posting announcements to subscribers. This arrangement offers an attractive marketing opportunity for sponsors and provides those of us who are trying to improve the schools a vital means of communication. In the long term, the Clearinghouse has the potential to shape the quality of products and services in the education marketplace. At present, the market is thoroughly saturated with producer-friendly offerings because bureaucrats are spending billions annually on that which producers find attractive. Relatively little is being spent on the products and services that treat learning as an unrivaled priority. Thus, an incidental but key objective of this venture is to expand the market for consumer-friendly educational products and expertise. If the existence of such a market can be demonstrated, not only will result-oriented offerings become more widely available, prevailing concepts of teaching, learning, and schooling are apt to shift in response to market demand. I encourage you to subscribe to the Clearinghouse and I would appreciate your help in making it known to other education consumers. Feel free to invite individuals whom you know to have a consumer's (as opposed to a producer's) interest in education. As to those individuals who are both consumers and producers, I only ask that they participate as consumers. My objective is for the Clearinghouse to become a place for discussion among consumers, not for debate with producers intent on defending the status quo. For subscriptions, just e-mail me at: PROFESSOR@TRICON.NET John J. E. Stone, Ed.D. Education Consumers Clearinghouse (c) P.O. Box 4411 Johnson City, TN 37602 phone & fax (call first) 423-282-6832