In my 38 years in public education, I never witnessed as consequential a vote as was taken on Dec. 14 and the early morning hours of Dec. 15. The Santa Clara County Office of Education Board, on a very controversial 5-2 and 4-3 vote, approved 20 new Rocketship Education charter schools in Silicon Valley.

There is a game-changing local story about to take place in a few days. A decision before the SCCOE Board of Education is whether or not to approve 20 Rocketship Charter Schools on a countywide benefit charter basis. Each new school approval is listed as a separate action item on the Board’s agenda. The turf wars are just beginning.

We need career technical education and well-trained career counselors in every middle and high school in California. Columnists in local and national print media agree based on what I read Sunday, Dec. 4. Let me explain. Not everyone needs a 4-year college degree, but everyone must have requisite skills for the jobs of the 21st century in order to enjoy a middle-class income.

We continue to attempt to build education reform from the top down rather than from the bottom up. Building a foundation with our two teachers’ unions (CTA and CFT) for lasting school reform—beginning with evaluation systems that are effective, pay for performance plans that work, and ending tenure as we know it today—is the only way we will hit a home run. Until then, our children and schools lose.

This Thanksgiving we have so very much to be proud and thankful for relative to the education of underserved children living in the poorest areas of Santa Clara County. And last week’s decision to approve three new charter schools will prove to be one of the most important weeks in local school governance in decades.

I wonder if the growing presence of high quality charter schools in Santa Clara County will serve as the revolution for eliminating the achievement gap. Will innovative means of learning be the norm? Is the timing right for a revolution in our public school system in Santa Clara County? Will the status quo prevail? Or, can change be the only constant now? We will know answers to some of these questions after the Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) board meeting this week.

Due to the recent sexual harassment stories surfacing about Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, it was interesting to note that a new study surfaced Monday about school-age sexual harassment. The American Association of University Women released a major national study on 7-12th grade sexual harassment. Over nearly 2000 boys and girls from public and private schools were surveyed online in May and June 2011 on whether they had experienced sexual harassment. The AAUW findings indicate that during the 2010-11 school year 48 percent of students in grades 7-12 experienced some form of sexual harassment in person, electronically via texting (some refer to it as sexting), email and/or social media.

Over the last several months I have written two San Jose Inside columns on the Gates Foundation initiative to fund city/district/charter school collaborative compacts that bring meaningful cooperation and planning to the forefront of communities. Each time, I wrote that I had enormous hope that our collaborative compacts would be validated and funded by Gates. That hope, however, took a hit during a conference call with the foundation Monday.

Holy Toledo! Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) actually believe the 2011 rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965—reauthorized in 2002 as No Child Left Behind—can be voted on by the Senate by Thanksgiving and the House by Christmas. No way will this become a reality.

Some communities get it, and some don’t get it at all. It is truly amazing how things work when there is a vision and people with the talents to carry it out. Right now, a brand new two-story school building, built in record time on one acre of land in a residential neighborhood of San Jose, houses hundreds of K-3 grade students who are eager to learn.

At last week’s Santa Clara County Board of Education meeting, there was nothing more important to me than the decision of whether or not to extend the Bullis K-8 Charter by five years. I wished to do so with wisdom and care. Depending on who you listen to, the four-hour debate was far too contentious and protracted. I wish to set the record straight from my perspective, knowing full well there are a variety of vantage pointes and views.

Why are we leaving so many children behind when educators know now how to get students prepared for a fulfilling and prosperous life? As a participant last week in the 3rd Annual Career Technical Education (CTE) conference, I became angry that we have not kept our eye on the ball. For example, why are there so many Silicon Valley job openings on LinkedIn and other career recruitment sites while the unemployment rate is more than 10 percent?

We live in an extraordinary community where you often hear stories of philanthropists writing large checks from their foundations to personal causes. Last week, Meg Whitman announced in East San Jose that she is giving $2.5 million to Summit Charter schools for 10 new 400 student high schools over the next decade. That same amount would pay for youth gang prevention services for up to 14 San Jose Schools in six districts for four years. Let me explain.

While participating in last week’s Game Changers 2012 event, which focused on Silicon Valley’s economy and was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, I had the sinking feeling that public education was in a baseball “pickle” and down to its last out.

It has been an honor for me to serve on the Board of Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Sometimes it’s been rewarding, other times frustrating, but never boring. Here is a self-assessment, knowing full well any issue I might want to work on needs at least three other board members to agree.

This week, as scripted by federal law, most of us enjoyed a national holiday lobbied for by the labor movement in the late 19th century. The intention of labor leaders was to create a commemorative day where the average American worker was recognized for their contributions to the nation and its people. But too many Labor Day celebrations on Monday were without the flourish and pomp paid to labor that I grew up with many decades ago.