A Letter to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer about Gov. Strickland’s Education Plan

Check out this slammin’ letter to the editor by my friend Megan! It appeared in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer 2/26/09:

As an Ohioan teaching English in rural Austria, I have a very different perspective on Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed education reforms.

I was among those over-achievers who took all of the toughest high school classes while involved in several extracurricular activities. A “senior thesis” would have been superfluous. It would only add to the overwhelming stress that highly motivated high school pupils face daily. Those who want to achieve will do so. Determination isn’t instituted through a required project.

And 20 extra classroom days a year would serve largely to make pupils fidgety and distracted. Shorter summers mean less opportunity for employment to pay for ever-increasing college tuitions.

Want to really equip Ohio’s youth with “21st-century skills”? Add a serious foreign language program in early elementary school, when students’ brains are still linguistically malleable.

I teach at three high schools here in Austria — two “middle level” and one “upper level” in difficulty and prestige. My seniors at all three are not just bilingual — they are trilingual. They can converse fluently in German, English, and Italian or French. While Ohio attempts foreign language offerings, the impression I took from my own high school and from peers at others was that most who opted to take a foreign language (in Austria it is mandatory) might at best have been able to locate the post office or library, or announce whence they hail — hardly a marketable skill set.

If Gov. Strickland truly wants distinguished Ohioans, he should add a far more world-competitive language program. As things stand, any of my Austrian students would be a much more desirable out-of-high-school hire than any Ohioan — or any American, for that matter. And that puts us at a serious global disadvantage.

Megan Strang
Avon, OH
Judenburg, Austria