Fourteen-hundred educators from around the state are in Des Moines today for a “summit” on high schools. Iowa Department of Education director Judy Jeffrey says all sectors of public and private education are represented at the meeting. “We are good, but this is what Iowa educators do — we only get better,” Jeffrey says. Governor Tom Vilsack challenged the crowd to make high school “more rigorous and relevant” for students. “I want to thank everyone who is in this room,” Vilsack said. “It is essential and important and vital to the future of this state to continually improve education. The size of this audience speaks volumes about the importance that education has as a central part of the Iowa experience.” Vilsack says there’s a “movement’ to ensure that every single child in the state gets an education so they can reach their full potential and so the state can reach its potential. “The bottomline is in order for this state to realize its potential, in order for it to grow, in order for it to continue to be the best place to live, work and raise a family, we have got to make sure that we have well-educated people,” Vilsack says. A majority of Iowa’s high schools have administrators or teachers at today’s meeting.
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