Public education is in a state of chaos and some of our political leaders aren’t making it any easier — which means Wacoans should be especially attentive as Waco Independent School District officials seek to forge a five-year education plan. Residents should pay heed whether they have kids in school or just care about our city’s economic prospects.

It’s easy to get discouraged. Experts tapped by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers only last week laid out an ambitious national program to bring long-elusive state-to-state uniformity to curriculum standards, designed to combat the practice of some states lowering testing standards to meet national guidelines.

That’s exciting, but Texas isn’t involved. Along with Alaska, it’s opting out of national uniformity standards at Gov. Rick Perry’s direction. That could backfire on students who entertain ambitious goals that place them in competition with students from other states, let alone other countries.

Meanwhile, the Texas Board of Education continues to be a national embarrassment, adding political biases to history such as insisting that Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson be held as a leadership model and that everything from conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly to the Heritage Foundation figure into social studies curriculum.

So what’s a local district to do? Plenty, we hope.

Pat Atkins, one of our more thoughtful board members, argues for the need to maximize job-training possibilities within the district, something that may prove crucial if Texas State Technical College’s Waco campus and McLennan Community College are to play a dynamic role in further shaping youths for high-paying careers in science and technology.

Judging from comments we’ve heard, the district also must do a better job of communicating with its teachers, some of whom tell us they feel left out of decision-making and that district leaders are indifferent to their concerns.

We also feel the district could do much better at communicating with the public. It could take more than a few tips from the city of Waco, which wins plaudits for its efforts to inform the public through everything from bulletins mailed to the public to extremely effective use of its broadcasting facilities.

Reaching out will be important, depending on how aggressive school officials’ five-year plan turns out to be. We’ve already heard a lot of concern by some teachers and parents about even the notion of extending the school day by mere minutes. Maybe that concern was justified. But if that’s going to cause alarm, how can sweeping change be accomplished if school officials can’t articulate the urgency of our situation?