Looking Ahead

November 16, 2009 | no comments

by Emily Snyder, IECA Professional Member (Virginia), and Chair of IECA’s College Committee

For those of you who follow national development of educational issues, I returned home from the IECA Conference to hear Al Sharpton, Newt Gingrich, and Arnie Duncan come together with David Gregory on NBC’s Sunday morning “Meet the Press” to discuss forming a coalition to address what they all believe is a need for national curriculum standards. The implications of such a movement — which we have actually been headed towards for some time — on education from pre-K through college and beyond are enormous. My belief is that any resulting legislation will require us to alter how we work with students and families, regardless of our specialties, in ways that we have not even begun to fathom.

Part of our role as consultants is being aware of what’s on the educational horizon so that we can appropriately guide the students and families we work with as they make expensive and long term educational decisions. That’s why it will be more important for us than ever before to support IECA sponsoring workshops and sessions on controversial legislation that impacts any and all of us — like the Friday afternoon session where members from CAFETY and therapeutic boarding schools came together to discuss their views with consultants.

While there wasn’t much time to do more than touch the surface of the issue and its implications, Mark Sklarow as the moderator, the panelists, and the comments from the audience all served a purpose — IECA created a public dialogue where both sides of the issue were aired and information was shared; a forum I would encourage all of us to support as the nature of our work continues to evolve.