Friday, July 16, 1999
Education task force calls for communication, collaboration
BY MOLLY HARPER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Communication and cooperation are the keys to improving the region's schools, a Northern Kentucky education task force reported Thursday.
“Education is a cooperative effort,” said Gary Bricking, chairman of Forward Quest's education committee. “Some people will like what the report says, some won't. But the bottom line is everyone wants better schools.”
Forward Quest is a group of business and community leaders pushing to map a future for Northern Kentucky. The education committee worked with Alliance Research Inc. to survey 300 people, interview school superintendents and educators, and lead focus groups of parents, teachers and students.
The result 12 recommendations including facility improvements, collaborative programs among schools and the creation of a inter-district board called the Northern Kentucky Regional Education Collaborative.
Mr. Bricking said one of the most important functions of the committee's report is it will get people talking about education in Northern Kentucky.
“Northern Kentucky residents are not very knowledgeable on the issues surrounding public education in their community,” the report read. “The greatest testimony to this conclusion is that one-third of the citizens contacted for this study described themselves as uninformed about Northern Kentucky education.”
Mr. Bricking said a lack of information can lead to misun derstandings about controversial issues such as education reform. The inter-district board could dispel such misunderstandings through communication.
The staffing of the collaborative and the improvements made would be paid for through private fund raising and corporate donations.
“We're not trying to create another bureaucracy,” Mr. Bricking said. “This is a cooperative effort. We don't want the schools to feel like they have to participate and have another drain on their funds.”
The committee's recommendations must be approved by the Forward Quest board before the collaborative can be formed.
“This is just the first step in our plan of attack,” Mr. Bricking said. “There's some work to be done before we can make this happen.”
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