The day I graduated from Adams Friendship High School - never mind the year - was the day I started to really understand that, when it came to school, I wasn't in it alone.
I saw the pride in my parents' faces and heard it in the voices of so many of the other parents, educators and community members who came together for commencement. Graduation day isn't just for the students who graduate and are already preoccupied with what comes next. It is for everybody who helped them succeed and everyone who will benefit from their accomplishments when they take what they have learned out into the world.
So when we congratulate our graduating high school seniors we should also take time to congratulate and thank each other.
The public schools we have today are the result of the investments, ingenuity and commitment of our parents and grandparents. Students, parents, schools and communities all work together to create the future, and today's teachers and education support professionals build on that legacy of excellence with the outstanding work they do every day.
This shared commitment yields impressive results. Year after year, Wisconsin has one of the nation's best high school graduation rates. For the past 18 years, Wisconsin's high school seniors have scored first or second on the national ACT college entrance exam.
And in classrooms throughout our state, students and educators are doing amazing things: the national runner-up Academic Decathlon team in Waukesha; student filmmakers in Milwaukee and DeForest; champion historians in Appleton; and rocket scientists in Sheboygan, to name just a few.
Great schools benefit everyone, and economic development is one way we all benefit from Wisconsin's excellent public schools. Expansion Management and Inc. magazines ranked Wisconsin among the top states in the nation for starting and growing businesses, and the articles' authors gave the state's public schools much of the credit.
So as we talk about our students' future we should also talk about the future of public education in Wisconsin. We live in a rapidly changing world where one thing we know for certain is that education and knowledge are more important than ever. We face the challenge of maintaining our schools' excellence while at the same time integrating new innovations and promising ideas into the curriculum. All of this is happening in an environment of increased mandates from the federal and state government and increasingly tight school district budgets.
I believe investments in great schools build strong communities, and I'm confident that we can meet these challenges, as we always have, by combining our strengths. For example, I believe we can find a real solution to the state's school funding crisis that does not tear communities apart.
You can tell me what you believe about Wisconsin's public schools by going to WEAC.org and clicking on the We Believe icon at the top of the home page.
In the meantime, congratulations for a job well done. And thank you.
- Mary Bell is president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
I saw the pride in my parents' faces and heard it in the voices of so many of the other parents, educators and community members who came together for commencement. Graduation day isn't just for the students who graduate and are already preoccupied with what comes next. It is for everybody who helped them succeed and everyone who will benefit from their accomplishments when they take what they have learned out into the world.
So when we congratulate our graduating high school seniors we should also take time to congratulate and thank each other.
The public schools we have today are the result of the investments, ingenuity and commitment of our parents and grandparents. Students, parents, schools and communities all work together to create the future, and today's teachers and education support professionals build on that legacy of excellence with the outstanding work they do every day.
This shared commitment yields impressive results. Year after year, Wisconsin has one of the nation's best high school graduation rates. For the past 18 years, Wisconsin's high school seniors have scored first or second on the national ACT college entrance exam.
And in classrooms throughout our state, students and educators are doing amazing things: the national runner-up Academic Decathlon team in Waukesha; student filmmakers in Milwaukee and DeForest; champion historians in Appleton; and rocket scientists in Sheboygan, to name just a few.
Great schools benefit everyone, and economic development is one way we all benefit from Wisconsin's excellent public schools. Expansion Management and Inc. magazines ranked Wisconsin among the top states in the nation for starting and growing businesses, and the articles' authors gave the state's public schools much of the credit.
So as we talk about our students' future we should also talk about the future of public education in Wisconsin. We live in a rapidly changing world where one thing we know for certain is that education and knowledge are more important than ever. We face the challenge of maintaining our schools' excellence while at the same time integrating new innovations and promising ideas into the curriculum. All of this is happening in an environment of increased mandates from the federal and state government and increasingly tight school district budgets.
I believe investments in great schools build strong communities, and I'm confident that we can meet these challenges, as we always have, by combining our strengths. For example, I believe we can find a real solution to the state's school funding crisis that does not tear communities apart.
You can tell me what you believe about Wisconsin's public schools by going to WEAC.org and clicking on the We Believe icon at the top of the home page.
In the meantime, congratulations for a job well done. And thank you.
- Mary Bell is president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
