If+Author+was+Our+Educational+Leader

**Vision of William Bennett as the Educational Leader of Your School**

Characteristics of our school if led by William J. Bennett

 * ** Increased Family Participation and **Strong**er Focus on Traditional Values**
 * ** A more rigorous curriculum focused on English, history, geography, math, science, art, & music; including textbooks and frequent homework in these subject areas **
 * ** Clear, Enforced Discipline Code **

 Increased Family Participation and ** Stronger Focus on Traditional Values **
If Bennett was our educational leader we would see a major shift in the importance of **family values**. Bennett believes strongly in **parent participation** in the schools. Many districts do not focus on including the parents in their children's education. Many households have two parents who work outside the home on a full time basis making it difficult for educators to include parents. Also, many families now have single parent households which can greatly increase the pressures on that parent making them even more unavailable to the teachers.

In his book, "The Educated Child", Bennett suggests that a school district have 3 contracts for the start of the school year. The first is for the school. It would state the **responsibilities of the educators**. Then he suggests one for the **students** that lists their **responsibilities**. Lastly, he proposes one for the **parents**. My (Cicerale) district has the first two, but I have never seen one for the parents. The contract for the parents lists what many might consider **traditional values**. This leads us to believe that if Bennett was the educational leader we would see a dramatic shift towards **traditional values**.

** More Rigorous Curriculum **
This discussion does not mean to say I (Ferrante) do not believe we have rigorous curricula in my district. However, based upon my research of William J. Bennett, his perception would be that there is too much focus on skills, discovery learning, multiple intelligences, cooperative learning, technology integration and self esteem. He would argue that there is not enough focus on basic skills, not enough homework, and not enough teaching of the basics of the humanities. Dr. Bennett would agree that there seems to be a fair amount of successful character education happening in our district.