The New Century Commission on Education envisions schools and classrooms as exciting places where students and teachers are engaged in rigorous and challenging learning activities. Schools and classrooms include people of all ages who discuss, share, reason together, discover, create, and learn. They are places that look like workshops, studios, theaters, laboratories, boardrooms, newsrooms, or businesses. The spaces are bright, clean, and inviting. Teachers function more like coaches and guides rather than information disseminators or gatekeepers.
Students feel supported in taking risks to think independently and to hone new skills.
What is required to make these changes is a common effort by all members of the Jacksonville community to change the way we raise and educate our children. Parents and families as well as the community must be actively involved in students' learning and education. Implementing the recommendations of the New Century Commission on Education will require the efforts and commitment of the whole community. The New Century Commission Process The Duval County School Board established the New Century Commission on Education in February 1997 in an effort to encourage broad participation in setting new directions for the school district and recommending new initiatives and structures. The eleven-member Commission, appointed by members of the School Board and the Mayor of Jacksonville, began its work shortly thereafter.