I stand by my earlier comment..."We certainly can not just wait for education to evolve." As I read the various comments I see a discussion taking place about how we effect change and to me that is the topic ..leadership from all parties to effect change.
I agree with Scott real change needs good leadership , but even leaders with a vision have trouble effecting change when the staff is resistant. So how do we avoid preaching to the choir... How do we present a challenge... to really do something different. How do we forge a powerful force of admnins, teachers, it, librarians etc that will become change agents and leaders....That is a conversation I would like to have and if there is someone out there who can give a keynote on leadership that will get this ball rolling we can make a difference.

I am and administrator and I know how important leadership and vision are to meaningful change. I agree we need to address this issue head on but I would like to broaden the topic slightly. We are all in this together and since we know that a large part of the audience consists of teachers can we structure a talk that Challenges everyone. What are you going to do to effect change? We certainly can not just wait for education to evolve.

First off yes we need to kkep the focus on topics not speakers. Kevin says in an earlier comment..."Change in local best-practices comes from trusting local teacher-leaders to explore and learn and bring that new thinking to the entire staff and school community. How do we grow innovation in education and create new pockets of possibility? This is the kind of question I want to ask and the kind of conversation I want to have."..
I see the issue of leadership in both Kevin and Scott's topics. I just hope that we do address leadership or maybe more correctly how we ALL need to be agents of radical change. I think we have to do a lot more than "create new pockets of possibility"