Education will take center stage at the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce's Annual Meeting on October 30, featuring Robert Pondiscio as the keynote speaker. Pondiscio, an education policy expert and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is set to address how American schools can be better prepared for future challenges.

Ahead of his talk, Pondiscio contributed a column to the Albuquerque Journal on October 18. In it, he stated, “For generations, where you lived determined where you were educated, mostly in district-run public schools a short ride away in a yellow school bus. Your parents likely weighed the quality of local schools when deciding where to move or buy a house. But after that, the relationship was unremarkable and sewn with minimal thought into the fabric of most families’ lives.”

He attributes issues like COVID-19, cultural conflicts, and declining confidence in American institutions as significant factors affecting education today. "Schools are a rock-bottom basic public service," Pondiscio noted. "When they become unavailable or unreliable for months at a time, parents make other plans that become habits and stick. COVID also ripped the lid off the black box of the American classroom, with ‘Zoom school’ broadcast onto kitchen tables across the country, sometimes revealing lessons that rubbed some parents the wrong way or simply suggested lack of rigor or low student expectations."

Pondiscio's presentation promises to delve deeper into these topics during his appearance in Albuquerque. Those interested in attending can obtain tickets through a QR code or provided link.