The word education encompasses a variety of meanings and experiences for almost everyone alive on the planet.

While extraordinary advances have been achieved since the days when formal education occurred in one-room prairie schools, much has remained the same.

In fact, the old maxim "if a turtle finds itself on top of a fence post, it is obvious that it had help" is perfect for education at this time in history.

Never before has so much attention been focused on the various constituencies associated with the E-word (education): university presidents, colleges of education and their deans; education governors; state licensure and certification agencies; school university partnerships; and the very consumers of the efforts of these constituencies, our future teachers.

The topic of education is part of every presidential candidate's platform in one form or another. So, for many of us who care about education, we are delighted to find ourselves up on the fence post. We finally have your attention.

There are many reasons for such slow forward progress. One could start with the organized voices of political forces and the demands from parents and student advocacy groups for specific services for our children. Add to those the limited capacity of teacher preparation programs to deliver new teachers to a system in great need and as well as the financial difficulties in keeping pace with the rapid technological advancements.

Others reasons include the pressure from educational reform groups to meet standards and at the same time provide for issues related to student diversity. Put into this a mix a teaching profession so busy and overworked it appears to be ambivalent about taking charge of its own profession, letting that up to professional teacher organizations and unions whose main sociological function is to maintain their own organizational membership.

However, everyone agrees that the struggle for this forward progress is well worth the effort. We just disagree on what constitutes forward progress.

While the turtle on the fence post can't make any forward progress on its own, just being there makes it the center of the debate among the constituency groups and the forces that impact education.

In the past, many teachers and administrators were just as pleased to have parents and other groups remain beyond the boundaries of their schools and classrooms. Those days and times, like the one-room prairie schools, are gone. Different words now mark the literature: collaborating, cooperating, partnering, teaming, restructuring, integrating, mainstreaming, standards, performance-based outcomes, and authentic-assessment measures.

What remains, however, are proposals that complete for either an array of standards (student, content, teachers, preparation standards) or for more autonomy, institutional diversity, valuing of unique institutional missions, and local control.

Fortunately, the good news, for the turtle and everyone else, is that student learning, whether it be what are they learning, or how to improve what they are learning, is a common focus for all involved.

So what are the changes likely to be revealed in the new millennium and beyond? Working faster or harder will not make the difference; working differently may.

The turtle, claiming to have heard it all, thinks the following can be expected in the future: Competing pressures will continue to impact education. Constituency groups will grow in number and forge stronger alliances with each other. Their common task will be to work collaboratively with schools and the teaching profession to bring about changes in our schools and in the lifelong development of professional educators.

The focus for all groups concerned will be the connection to and impact on "student learning" in schools. Technology will play a far greater role in student learning and in education program delivery. There will be more standards, more appropriate assessment of student learning, and more relevant curricula for students to learn.

Education schools will do more of their work in school settings. Practicing teachers will have a larger role in the preparation of new teachers. Lines between organizational boundaries will soften and blur. The energy of the players, the excitement of new collaborations, the power of great intentions, and impact of just enough "out-of-the-box" thinking will bring about changes in education that heretofore have not been realized.

I am thinking that the turtle is enjoying the spotlight.

Connie L. Fulmer is the acting chair for the Department of Teacher Education at Northern Illinois University.

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