Introduction

"To be a star athlete in high school, go to college, get 
ahead, make the grade, and be well liked.  Do these sound 
like laudable goals?  Try reading Arthur Miller's Death of a 
Salesman, required in many 11th grade English classes, to 
find out how destructive these goals can be.  I often wonder 
why we as a society don't pay better attention to what our 
great authors tell us.

I had read Death of a Salesman in high school a generation 
ago and had a vague recollection of how it had something 
to do with the failure of the American Dream.  Here I am 
now, living a comfortable life in Moraga, and the play is a 
distant memory, until my kids read it in their English 
classes and I think, hm, maybe I should re-visit this classic.   
Recently I had the opportunity to see an outstanding New 
York stage production and was profoundly moved by 
themes that resonate still today.  Dysfunctional parent-child 
relationships,  demeaning attitudes toward women, 
contempt for teachers and the craving for instant 
gratification are some of the issues the play deals with.

One of its more disturbing revelations is our on-going 
addiction to superficial, external measures of self-worth.  
Whether it's winning the game, getting the 4.0 GPA, 
becoming a millionaire, or having hundreds of people 
attend your funeral, we too often focus on the number and 
neglect the underlying human experience.  By the same 
token, we easily fall into the trap of relying on test scores to 
assess the quality of entities as complex and organic as 
our public schools.

How do you define success in a person's life, and wherein 
lies the value of an educational institution?  Food for thought 
and perhaps a family conversation---"

This was one of my monthly president's columns in our 
local high school's PTA newsletter two years ago.  Perhaps 
it's food as well for an on-line dialogue on California's 
Master Plan for Education.

What would we really like to see all children do?
1. Get straight A's, score well on standardized tests, go to 
college, become wealthy; or
2. Grow into adults who can support themselves and their 
families, take pride in their work, avoid committing crimes, 
participate in our democracy, and enjoy a reasonably 
satisfying and fulfilling life.
Both types of results involve education, but #2 does not 
necessarily follow from #1.

Who am I?  An education consultant (volunteer) for the 
League of Women Voters of California, a parent of recent 
high school graduates, a former UC Berkeley staff member, 
and years ago I was a foreign language teacher in a far 
away country.