Leadership Matters September 2013 .pub

Lincoln-Douglas debates. “Lincoln said, ‘…public sentiment is everything. With it nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.’" That is why Vollmer thinks the timing is critical for educators – superintendents, faculty and staff alike -- 49th Annual IASA Conference October 9—11, 2013 Click here to register or for more information

From critic to supporter of public education ___________________________

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invitation of former Iowa State Superintendent of Schools Dr. William Lepley back in the 1980s. Because of the ice cream company’s growing fame, Lepley recruited Vollmer to join the Iowa Business and Education Roundtable, a group that included the heads of such corporate giants as Alcoa and John Deere. Vollmer -- he of a 50-employee company -- became the group’s executive director and later formed his education advocacy firm, Jamie Vollmer, Inc. “I really had no intention of getting

to have positive, ongoing discussions about public education, building support one community at a time. Vollmer’s talk at the conference dovetails perfectly with IASA’s “Vision 20/20” initiative to develop a roadmap for public education in Illinois. “Like I said earlier, the moral and practical have become the same thing. Not only do people need to know that supporting the local schools is the right thing to do, they need to know it’s the right thing for them, too -- including the 75 percent of taxpayers who don’t have children in school,” Vollmer said. “When communities support their schools,

“ We have reached a point where the

so deeply involved. I got my sleeve caught in the machine. It just may be the most important enterprise of our time,” said Vollmer, reflecting on his past 30-plus years of writing and talking about public education. One of Vollmer’s books, Schools Cannot Do It Alone, was cited as one of the top 10 education books of 2010. Vollmer’s website prominently displays this quote: “Public education is a miracle. And this is its most hopeful time.” “It’s not just hyperbole,” he said. “What I mean by that quote is that we

moral imperative and the practical need to educate every child are now the same thing because our once highly forgiving economy is gone. ” —Jamie Vollmer

good things start to happen in those communities… property values go up, businesses are attracted, people want to live in those types of communities.” It is a perspective that Vollmer has gained from visiting hundreds of schools. He probably cannot eat blueberry ice cream without thinking about that English teacher who helped mold his sentiment about public education. He now says only one of his three original assumptions remain: the need for change, something schools cannot accomplish alone. “We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society,” Vollmer said. “But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.”

have never been in this place before, where we are required to do everything we can do to unfold the potential in every student. It used to be that not every student needed a degree to make a good living, but that agro-industrial economy doesn’t exist anymore. “We have reached a point where the moral imperative and the practical need to educate every child are now the same thing because our once highly forgiving economy is gone.” Vollmer said his message at the IASA Conference will focus on harnessing the power represented by the education leaders throughout the state. “The power of the people in that room and the power of the people that they manage equal an army that can alter public perception and reaction,” Vollmer said. “There are all sorts of enemies to public education. I was the living embodiment of that. It is fitting that I will be talking in Springfield, Illinois, because Abraham Lincoln had a great quote about public sentiment back in 1858 during one of the

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