Agenda - 03-21-1989 - Laserfiche WebLink

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1 ` 2 A MODEL SCHOOL FOR THE REGION • INTRODUCTION In the drive to establish Triangle J as a world-class region, education has emerged as a vital, required component in the planning process. Just as the Research Triangle now serves as a model for regional economic planners across the nation, the Triangle J planning team envisions a collaborative business/school/government educational initiative that will showcase the vision and the resources of the Triangle I region and make it a model for educational planners across the nation. The goal of such an initiative is to develop a regional education system that exhibits world-class excellence. That presumes creating an education system that supports quality teaching as a rewarding profession. It enables its students to develop creativity and a capacity for critical thinking. It builds higher order skills on a solid foundation of basic math,reading and language skills. It helps its students acquire essential familiarity with history and literature, and gives them a sense of participating in a global community. A world-class system also offers quality education for all students and student success is the ultimate measurement of the success or failure of the schools. . As a first step toward creating a world-class regional education system, the Triangle J planners envision the creation of a model school that will harness modem technology and innovative teaching tools within the walls of a school that has restructured its organization to allow creativity and controlled innovation to flourish. In planning a model school, the region has a wealth of high quality public school, community college and university programs and people from which to draw resources. Those educational resources, combined with leading high technology businesses and elected officials committed to providing world-class educational opportunities for the region's young people, provide a strong foundation upon which to build a vision of schooling in the future. _ - GOAL The goal of the model school demonstration project is to demonstrate the potential educational benefits that would result from harnessing new technology and modern methods of management and organization to the school environment. RATIONALE While modern technology is transforming the business environment, education has been slow to harness the potential offered by new technologies. Contributing to the technology lag in education are a variety of factors; for instance, the rapid population growth in the Triangle J area has created a demand for new facilities, additional teaching staff and transportation that has limited the revenue available for technology. While schools lag behind industry in harnessing technology, the time delay now makes it possible to learn from industries' experience with automating their work environments.