About NWEF
Why NWEF?
Education is of vital importance to our government, our business communities, and our families. It is critical to the present and future success of our nation! Despite significant emphasis over the years and the tremendous amounts of financial resources invested every year, school performance is in a steady decline.
Teachers and parents are growing increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied with our schools.
Something must be done!
To understand the many concerns and make the changes needed for success, a few foundational questions need to be addressed:
- What does success in education look like?
- What impact does education have on culture and society?
- What are the core / essential elements of quality education?
- What models are providing the best results now?
- What changes need to be made in our present educational systems?
- What actions can be taken to secure these changes on a wide scale?
To address these questions, Noah Webster Educational Foundation is leading a national conversation on America’s education and culture.
We seek to include many voices in this discussion, representing educational providers, parents, and other taxpayers. As we present opinions, school experiences, and statistics, our purpose is to improve America’s education and culture through foundational principles and sound policy.
Why NWEF?
Education is of vital importance to our government, our business communities, and our families. It is critical to the present and future success of our nation! Despite significant emphasis over the years and the tremendous amounts of financial resources invested every year, school performance is in a steady decline.
Teachers and parents are growing increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied with our schools.
Something must be done!
To understand the many concerns and make the changes needed for success, a few foundational questions need to be addressed:
- What does success in education look like?
- What impact does education have on culture and society?
- What are the core / essential elements of quality education?
- What models are providing the best results now?
- What changes need to be made in our present educational systems?
- What actions can be taken to secure these changes on a wide scale?
To address these questions, Noah Webster Educational Foundation is leading a national conversation on America’s education and culture.
We seek to include many voices in this discussion, representing educational providers, parents, and other taxpayers. As we present opinions, school experiences, and statistics, our purpose is to improve America’s education and culture through foundational principles and sound policy.
Our Vision and Mission
Our Vision:
To reclaim education and culture through foundational principles and sound policy.
Definition of Education
In his 1828 work, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Webster defined education in this way:
“EDUCA’TION, noun [Latin educatio.] The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts, and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable, and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.”
Unfortunately, today’s education has drifted away from some of the elements of this definition. Could our current neglect of this holistic definition of education have something to do with the results we are seeing in our schools, the workplace, and in our communities today?
Here at NWEF, we think Americans must revisit the ideals of education addressed in Webster’s definition—and take personal responsibility and action as citizens to accomplish these ideals—in order to see lasting and positive educational change in our schools.
The change is really up to us all!
Purpose of Education
These phrases are prominently featured in Webster’s definition of education:
“The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations.”
Based on this definition, there are a few key purposes of education.
- To impart knowledge
- To develop character
- To equip students for a useful place in society
As we work with you toward education reform, these three purposes represent an excellent starting place in education.
How can we as Americans transform our schools into places of knowledge-building, character development, and true equipping for life? That’s the question we try to answer—and put into action—here at the Noah Webster Educational Foundation.
Founder
Melvin Adams
Founder
Melvin Adams has over 40 years of experience in educational leadership. Born in Africa to parents serving as Christian missionaries, he was homeschooled in his early years, then attended a British school during his high school years before going to the U.S. to begin his college studies. He took his first teaching job in 1982.
Since then, he has served on the teaching faculty and in the administration of several schools and colleges in the U.S. and started and led a college in Ukraine from 1993-2000. From 2008-2016, he helped to found and lead Renewanation, a faith-based non-profit organization with a focus on education. In 2016, he served on the Presidential Transition Team as a Senior Advisor on Education.
His international experience and his work in the private non-profit sector have helped to shape his perspectives on education. He lives in Virginia with his wife Sandy. They have six children and twenty grandchildren.
Board of Directors
Lowell Martin
Board Member
Dr. Karen Hiltz
Secretary/Treasurer
Dr. Don Richardson
Board Member
Josiah Gaiter
Board Member
Debe Terhar
Board Member
Erika LeBaron
Board Member
Our Five Core Principles
This is one of the most important factors in a child’s development.
Government is helped when citizens are educated but citizens are not best served when their only opportunity is government education.
Faith and morality form character and are essential elements of human flourishing and civil society.
Funding, facilities, and infrastructure requires stewardship.
Meet the team …
Who was Noah Webster?
Noah Webster, Jr. (October 16, 1758 – May 28, 1843) is widely known as the Father of America’s Scholarship and Education. He came of age during the time of the American Revolution. He was a strong supporter of the Constitutional Convention and dedicated his life to causes he believed would make a stronger nation.
Noah Webster believed in the developing cultural independence of the United States. He thought that a distinctive American language was important to the success of the union. His first effort to help with the unifying language was A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, the first truly American dictionary, which he published in 1806. He then expanded that effort by learning 26 different languages, reflecting the languages of ethnic communities found in the United States, and in 1828 he published An American Dictionary of the English Language.
In addition to helping shape the language usage of early Americans, Noah Webster was an education reformer and the author of several textbooks. He believed in the importance that citizens in the various states would have the opportunity to learn and acquire a similar knowledge base, creating a competitive advantage for all.
While Webster published several successful textbooks, one of the most used was A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, otherwise known as the Blue Back Speller, in 1783. It became the staple for teaching children for well over a century and was central to the education of several generations of early Americans. Benjamin Franklin reportedly taught his granddaughter to read, spell, and pronounce words using “Old Blue Back”. This work by Webster is credited with helping to build “the most literate nation in the history of the West”.
Webster’s focus on education emphasized the fundamental pillars of learning and knowledge. In time, those pillars became widely known as the 3 Rs: reading, writing, and (a)rithmetic. The common understanding was that students who grasped these basic disciplines well would have the tools they needed to learn anything else required for their success in life.
Webster was also a pioneer in epidemiology, a newspaper editor, an early antislavery advocate, and a political activist.
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