He envisions the conference attracting 1,000 to 2,000 people from every school district as well as private, charter, home-school and faith-based schools in Kansas City to the Sprint Center. Funkhouser told students at Metropolitan Community College – Penn Valley the education summit would double as an economic development confab in Kansas City.

He plans to borrow concrete ideas from the successful Harlem Children’s Zone to stimulate education in Kansas City.

The excerpt above was from a KC Star editorial: Borrowing from Harlem to boost KC
By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Board Columnist June 23, 2009

Funkhouser said the summit would help raise Kansas City’s profile so that it would be first in line for an expected new federally funded, Obama administration initiative targeting comprehensive education efforts.

“What I hope the outcome is, is to change the conversation about education in Kansas City,” Funkhouser said. “Every good thing starts with a conversation and a dialogue with a shared understanding and shared meaning.”

Private schools and/or faith-based schools are not necessarily dependent on federally funded, Obama administration initiatives.

Homeschoolers definitely are not. That freedom from the attached strings is one of the joys of homeschooling. It might be an elusive concept, but that fact and the meaning of educational autonomy would be a definite start to a conversation including homeschoolers.

Tags: economic development, Kansas City Education Summit, Kansas City homeschooling, Mark Funkhouser

This entry was posted on June 24, 2009 at 7:43 am and is filed under News-Commentary, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.