It feels like madness. China continues to fund our debt, launches major initiatives to improve their future—particularly in green technologies—and their education system is outsmarting us. Concurrently, with the rising drop-out rate and decreasing graduation rate of our 18 year olds, we are spending trillions of U.S. tax dollars nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1970 the U.S. produced 30 percent of the world’s college graduates…today only 15 percent. This is madness. We need nation building here beginning with public education now.

I vividly remember being an invited guest at the San Jose Downtown Rotary meeting last year listening to the luncheon speaker Reed Hastings, Netflix’s founder, blaming the ills of American public education on local elected school boards. I believe there is much blame to go around as we have discussed on this site—parents, administrators, tenure, etc.—but school boards as a systemic cause of school failure did not resonate with me.

Should we be celebrating Silicon Valley’s small educational gains this week? Are these gains scalable? Are we beginning to turn the educational tide? My answer to all these questions is a resounding “maybe.”

It has been 644 days since America elected its first African-American President and race issues continue to plague our nation in ways that indicate a trend line of grave concern. The racial achievement gap is one of the most pressing issues of our time. SJ2020 is working on a strategic plan to eliminate the achievement gap in the next 10 years in San Jose and Silicon Valley.

Are we crazy or what? It costs the state of California more than $225,000 to incarcerate one youth in the Department of Juvenile Justice system per year, yet we are only compensating school districts about $7,000 per year to educate a student.

Yes on Measure J: Bring the Super Bowl, etc., to Santa Clara. Yes on all the school bond measures, with one caveat. Yes on Measure K: A safe and sane sin tax.

I have been totally flummoxed on what in today’s world constitutes a progressive agenda for public education. I believe I am a progressive on many debatable public policy issues. When I attempt to outline a progressive agenda for K-12 education I am personally conflicted now more than ever

As I fly home on Monday evening to SJO I wish to share some thoughts from two inspiring days at the National School Board Association’s conference in Chicago.

• Public education is in crisis not only in California, but throughout the U.S. Continued cuts in essential personnel is making this the scariest of times. We can no longer afford any more cuts to visual and performing arts education.

I am so proud to be a resident of San Jose. With all the draconian budget cuts, layoffs in government and education it is easy to be depressed. Yet, San Jose is a shining example of a city that can still think strategically in down times while inspiring hope for a better future for all. This municipal strength is thanks in large measure to the organizing skills of People Acting In Community Together.

Peyton Manning vs. Drew Brees: Will one of these two quarterbacks end up as MVP of Super Bowl XLIV? Entirely possible. So is eliminating the achievement gap while increasing graduation rates for students in Santa Clara County. And the odds just got significantly better for all children in our public schools.

There is a Choice Revolution going on in public education today. Charter schools are at the heart of the increasing number of educational options available to parents—and public-school choice is generally a good outcome of the charter movement.

The federal program Race to the Top, which makes $4.35 billion available to states, requires that they lift caps which now limit the number of new charter schools. Locally, we are likely to see a huge growth in the number of charter schools without the 100-per-year cap imposed by the state of California.

Bottom-up-reform for improving education in Silicon Valley is more effective than top-down-reform efforts, however there is a paucity of examples of the former. In our climate of entrepreneurial know-how one would think there would be a bounty of examples of schools rearranging the apples on the proverbial cart to innovate and improve achievement for all. Yet, school the way we knew it back before the Apple II was introduced is still the norm.