Today was the first day of a new era with the inauguation of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. Yesterday, I suggested that this meant a new era in that new thinking has arrived in Washington, and it will celebrate inclusiveness and diversity.

I received in the post today a copy of the Scholastic Administator, a journal focusing on education, technology and leadership that was sent to me by Ken Royal, Senior Editor of the journal. One of the articles is entitled Dear President Obama: Please Fix Our Schools. The article solicited opinions from 8 “leaders” on education and schools. Here is a list of what they suggest:

• Raise expectations
• Get your priorities straight
• Meet the soccer apocalypse moms
• Measure the whole child
• Don’t do anything
• Save public education
• Put the world in world-class education
• Reinvent school

I think the item on the list that appealed to me at first was “don’t do anything,” which was written by Howard Gardner. He suggested to that the President should hold off doing anything radical, at first. Well that’s good advice. But he does make some suggestions that are based on his theory of multiple intelligences. His ideas are well worth consideration. I also liked the piece on measuring the whole child. This is a direct challenge to the obsession we have with high-stakes achievement testing that dominates measurement practice.

The article is provocative in that it offers a variety of suggestion based on educational experts’ current position or research interest. It’s a complex problem but if there is the will to change education in more inclusive, cooperative, and diverse environment, then I believe we have the leadership for this to happen.

What do you think? I invite you to take a few minutes to share tour thinking.