In a recent blog post titled The Inmates Who Want to Run the Asylum, Gerald Bracey takes to task the "idiots and professional fear mongers who are trying to control curriculum and instruction and education policy in our nation's schools..." Mr. Bracey is always worth reading carefully.

Journalist Fareed Zakaria noted that kids in Singapore score much higher than American kids on tests, but that 20 years later, it's the American kids who are ahead of the game. He asked the Singapore Minister of Education why this should be. The Minister said that while his kids had high test scores, American kids had talent. "We cannot use tests to measure creativity, ambition, or the willingness of students to question conventional wisdom. These are areas where Singapore must learn from America." Zakariya also quoted a father who had lived in America for a while and then moved back to Singapore: "In the American school, when my son would speak up, he was applauded and encouraged. In Singapore he's seen as pushy and weird. Schooling in Singapore is a chore. Work hard, memorize, test well" (the father put his kid in an American style private school).

Keith Baker, a retired U. S. Department of Education researcher got the same message from a Swedish father living in L. A.: "He holds a high position in a bioscience company," Baker wrote in the October Phi Delta Kappan. "He told me, 'There is no doubt that graduates of European high schools know a lot more than American grads, but I prefer my kids in American schools because Americans acquire a spirit that other countries lack.' Other anecdotal sources suggest this 'spirit' involves ambition, inquisitiveness, and perhaps most important, the absence of a fixation on testing and test scores."

Recall that psychologist Robert Sternberg called our high-stakes testing programs "one of the most effective vehicles this country has created for suppressing creativity."

How do Newburgh Schools promote innovation and creativity in our students?

More specifically, is promoting innovation and creativity a goal which the Newburgh Enlarged City School District Board of Education espouses?