RT @hechingerreport Our latest Go Deep section tackles community colleges. Read all nine stories! http://bit.ly/9Orbg8
N.J. teachers union snubbed by state education chief: http://sbne.ws/r/630S (from ASCD)
Utah state ed leaders to consider grading schools http://t.co/SnIMzDv
Extended school days under consideration in DC public school system http://t.co/jTZDmCB
RT @sgermeraad: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on #teacher effectiveness: time of change or just talk of change? http://bit.ly/9djRqP
For months now, the popular wisdom has been that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would be reauthorized in 2011 (only three or so years late). After all, John Kline (MN), the incoming House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman, and EdSec Arne Duncan have never been that far off on what they wanted from the law. Duncan’s blueprint has been public record since March. Kline has been hoping for more local control and greater attention on rural schools, two issues Duncan seems fine with. Their only significant difference is that Duncan is the champion of Race to the Top and Kline would like to see the program carted off to an early death. Otherwise, there is a lot to work with in the middle.
Following Tuesday’s elections, folks (including Eduflack) have been quick to say that education is the one issue Democrats and Republicans can probably agree on (to a degree) in the coming year. If both sides are looking for a quick win and a chance to show they stand FOR something and can move something forward, ESEA is likely it. The outstanding question, to many, is whether Hill Republicans want to give the White House and the Dems such a quick win.
Let’s be clear. We aren’t talking about a comprehensive overhaul of No Child Left Behind. When you take the March 2010 ESEA Blueprint, and mix in current political realities, we are really talking about a minor remodel of the law, not a rebuild. Additional flexibility. Revised accountability measures. Greater collaboration. More carrot and less stick. A kinder, gentler (and now level-funded) NCLB if you will.
Last week’s congressional elections make pretty clear that any ESEA reauth likely means a new law that is level funded. The incoming class (many of who ran on a platform to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education) is not looking to increase Duncan’s budget. And those cockeyed optimists who believe a lame duck congress passing an omnibus appropriations bill means a third round of RttT clearly haven’t been listening to Kline or a number of others who can undo in two months that which is done in the coming weeks.
But are we missing the bigger story in the reauthorization debate? Most seem to couch this as a Democrats versus Republicans issue, failing to see what current House Ed Committee Chairman George Miller (CA) and Kline have been moving a good draft forward for much of this year. And both Miller and Kline seem to be in tune with most of the priorities coming out of Maryland Avenue.
Instead, isn’t the real debate between the House and the Senate? Even when both chambers were controlled by Dems and all Dems were complaining about NCLB, we didn’t see a shared vision. If we couldn’t get a Dem Administration, a Dem House, and a Dem Senate to agree on K-12 education, what makes tomorrow different?
Has Sen. Tom Harkin (IA) been the stumbling block? Harkin controls both the Senate HELP Committee and the appropriations subcommittee that oversees education funding. While the senior senator from Iowa has held numerous hearings on specific issues related to ESEA, we haven’t seen the trial balloon drafts we come to expect during the reauth process. In fact, the Senate has been downright silent regarding its hopes and dreams for next-gen ESEA. So even if Duncan and Kline come to agreement on a bill that could work for their constituencies, will Harkin join in the fun?
In all honesty, we simply don’t know if ESEA is a priority for either the House or the Senate. Both committees have a significant number of TBDs on the membership roster for the coming congress. When we hear the list of priorities for the new House, education simply isn’t on the list. And we are hearing nothing coming out of the Senate.
If Duncan is smart, he just prepares to work under the confines of the current NCLB. He can do most of what he wants anyway, with the current law and some guidance (even of the non-regulatory variety) to make the shifts proposed in his blueprint. Is it ideal, no. But it may be the best choice in the current environment.
While we still don’t know where all the chips will fall once all of the votes have been counted and recounted, there are some drive-by observations we can make regarding yesterday’s results and the potential impact for education policy in 2011 and beyond.
One thing that becomes clear from yesterday’s results, folks are frustrated by how much money the federal government has spent in the past two years (dating back to President Bush’s TARP). So those thinking there are new pots of money for additional rounds of Race to the Top, i3, edujobs, or other such programs are likely to be severely disappointed. We’re back to doing more with less.
Historically, Republicans prefer to fund education research and assessment, while Democrats prefer to fund implementation. So it is fair to assume that the House Education and the Workforce Committee, under the leadership of likely new chairman John Kline (MN) will swing the pendulum back to the data.
Changes are coming to the education committees. On the Senate side, because of last night’s results, we are likely to see the GOP pick up two seats on HELP, while Dems lose two seats. And we have at least two Senate Dems, Dodd and Goodwin) who leave the Committee because they didn’t seek re-elect (and we still need to see what happens to Murray out in Washington and Bennet in Colorado). More importantly, we have two GOPers — Gregg and Roberts — who move off the Committee (and possibly a third, Murkowski, depending on write-in vote tallies in Alaska). A potential for five new Republicans on HELP in 2011. So Chairman Harkin will have major changes to deal with on a Committee that hasn’t quite been in the education game for the last year.
On the House side? Huge changes coming. Kline will be the new chairman. Rumors are already circulating that outgoing Chairman George Miller (CA) may retire rather than returning for the 112th Congress. And then we will have a slew of new Republicans added to the roster, while a bunch of Dems rotate off.
And don’t forget, the incoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner (OH), was one of the key architects of NCLB, when he himself chaired the House Education and Workforce Committee.
What about the states? The map of governors is looking awfully red. Republicans picked up the chief chair in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Mexico, and others. And we are still waiting for results in Florida, Illinois, and Oregon. Among RttT states, we are seeing an awful lot of Race states with Republicans at the helm.
No doubt, changes are coming to the edu-scape. Many candidates calling for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education were elected last night. There was little talk, if any, about the role of charter schools or school choice. And the incoming majority party was swept in on promises of smaller government, reductions in spending, and a return of local control. All of these promises have very real impact on federal and state education policy.
So what now? Expect Kline to move quickly with a plan to reauthorize ESEA … and expect EdSec Duncan to jump at the opportunity. It won’t be a major change to NCLB — some improvements, some changes, but the same core framework with some accountability and flexibility returned to the states/localities at roughly a level funding level. But that may be our only true edu-shot in 2011.
This time tomorrow (or possibly this time Thursday or Friday, depending on how close some elections out west may be) we will know what the 112th Congress will look like and we will have a clear sense of who will be sitting in the big desks in governors’ offices across the nation. You have to be living in a cave (or be in complete denial) not to know that big change is coming. So how will such change affect education policy plans for 2011 and beyond?
ESEA Reauthorization — We will likely see ESEA reauth in 2011, and it may actually be helped along by Republicans taking over the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep, John Kline (MN) has already been working closely with Chairman George Miller (CA) on the legislation. So while Kline is likely to give the draft a greater emphasis on local control and rural schools, it should still move.
And the U.S. Senate will follow the House’s lead. It is expected that Chairman Tom Harkin (IA) will remain in charge of the HELP Committee. But major changes on the committee (due to election results and retirements) may change the Senate perspective. If anything, it may help focus Harkin and get him to move on a meaningful piece of legislation.
Common Core Standards — Tomorrow, we are likely to see a lot of governor’s offices change parties. Inevitably, that is going to lead to many seeking new GOP governors to reconsider their states’ adoption of the Common Core Standards (all in the name of local control). And we may well see a few states pull out of the process, particularly if said states were RttT losers and are particularly proud of their state standards. Texas and Virginia can serve as the model for these “rebel” states.
Phase Three Race to the Top and Phase Two i3 — Many are hoping for another round of both RttT and i3. But additional rounds mean additional dollars. And if the lead-up to today’s elections mean anything, it is that folks are frustrated with how many federal dollars have been spent over the past 18 months. If we are seeing new RttT and i3 processes, it likely means having to move money from existing programs and existing priorities, a task that can be difficult during the reauthorization process.
Early Childhood Education — ECE has been the big loser in the last year. Despite a great deal of rhetoric about the importance of early childhood education and plans on what should be done, ECE simply hasn’t been shown the budgetary love. And that is unlikely to change. ECE advocates will likely be fighting for the scraps in the larger picture for the coming year, particularly if they cannot find new champions on the Hill from both sides of the aisle.
Public/Private Partnerships — We have long relied on public/private partnerships to help move education issues forward, and STEM education is the latest in a long line of such efforts that the education establishment and the private sector have been able to work together on. But will the Administration’s attack on business, particularly the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, make it more difficult to cut a deal to advance STEM in 2011? Or will the business community move forward without Obama and company? Only time will tell.
Teachers — EdSec Arne Duncan’s Teacher campaign is off and running, and it is likely to gain speed following the elections and stronger GOP representation in the states. Many see the Teacher effort, led by Brad Jupp, as an alt cert campaign (an unfair characterization, but it has stuck). So an anti-teachers union sentiment could give the recruitment effort some legs, particularly as new Republican governors look to model their administrations after NJ Gov. Chris Christie.
And what are the likely unsung issues in our post-election environment? Parental and family engagement is at the top of ol’ Eduflack’s list, as folks see the need for community buy-in on reauth and other issues in a difficult budget year. The assessments aligned with the Common Core will pick up steam. And we are likely to see state legislatures take on an even stronger role in education issues, particularly as we look at the future for ESEA and Common Core. And with all of our focus on reading for the past decade, math is likely to step into the forefront, particularly as more and more people raise issues with the math common core.
And so it begins …
As you may have noticed, Eduflack has been dark for the past couple of weeks. Blame a busy work schedule, coupled with a busy family schedule and a busy civic duty/school board schedule. Or chalk it up to the fact that education reform has been quite boring these past few weeks. We seem to be experiencing the Groundhog Day effect, where we are talking about the same issues and having the same arguments that we have been having in recent months and years.
But I’m getting back on the ol’ edu-horse. Following tomorrow’s elections, we’ll have new direction at the federal level and likely in the majority of statehouses across the nation. We have many saying education may be the leading domestic policy issue for 2011 (I’ll believe that when I see it). And we have a slew of major superintendencies open that need filling (hopefully without the typical game of supe musical chairs).
So Eduflack is back. Witty and relatively obnoxious commentary will likely start tomorrow, as we look at what will come out of election day. Around the Edu-Horn is coming back to. So please, give me a second (or a third, or even a first) chance.
HI gov. candidates bicker over appointed school board http://t.co/mHGTQHb
Obama’s Education Mess – Yahoo! News http://yhoo.it/buTUAL
Contract: Baltimore teachers union and district leaders to return to negotiating table http://bit.ly/9szsUy
Discipline rate of black students in Del., elsewhere is probed http://usat.me/40668620
Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee: We fought for D.C. schools. Now it’s up to you. http://t.co/x8BDF1R
Last year, President Obama declared a national goal of having the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by 2020. The thinking is simple. With the pending Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) focusing on college readiness, new common core standards and assessments doing the same, and increased talk that a college degree is necessary for a good job, it only stands to reason that the number of Americans earning a college degree will increase over the next decade.
We’ve all seen the statistics on return on investment for a college degree. Those holding the sheepskin will earn (by most, but not all, estimates) nearly $1 million over a lifetime than those with just a high school diploma. That million dollars gets reinvested back into the economy. The circle of educational/economic life continues. It is no wonder that investment in higher education is seen as a win-win deal.
But what about those who enroll in college, but never complete a degree? Are we getting ROI for those who drop out of college, and never earn the degree? Are they paying back those loans that the U.S. Department of Education is so focused on these days? And what other costs are we bearing because of those who fail to finish that first lap of college?
The latter question is one that is being addressed in a new report released today by Mark Schneider, former commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (at ED) and current vice president at American Institutes for Research (an institution, in full disclosure, that Eduflack works with). In “Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First-Year College Attrition in America’s Four-Year Colleges and Universities,” Dr. Schneider takes a look at the grant money (non loans) spent by the federal government, state governments, and individual institutions of higher education on first-year college students who do not return for their second year of college. And the numbers are startling.
Looking at the data available from the U.S. Department of Ed through its federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the only real data system the feds have for higher ed statistics, we see the 30 percent of first-year college students not returning for a second year accounted for $7.6 billion in grant money from state governments over a five-year period. Another $1.5 billion in federal grants were spent by the federal government. That’s more than $9 billion in aid that goes to students who barely spend enough time at college to learn their way around campus.
If we look at the numbers on a state-by-state basis, we expect to see the largest states on top of this of most dollars spent on first-year students who never return to college. And for the most part, we do. According to the AIR report, “13 states posted more than $200 million of state funds lost to students dropping out before the second year of college.”
The states include California ($467 million), Texas ($441 million), New York ($403 million), Illinois ($290 million), North Carolina ($285 million), Ohio ($277 million), Florida ($275 million), Indiana ($268 million), Michigan ($239 million), Georgia ($237 million); Louisiana ($213 million), Tennessee ($205 million) and Kentucky ($201 million).
What is one to do with this data? “Finishing the First Lap” is the first volley in a larger effort to educate policymakers and higher education officials on the financial impact of struggling higher ed completion rates. In conjunction with this report, Schneider is also launching College Measures, a new website that looks at grad rates and expenditure data for all 50 states and more than 1,500 individual IHEs. The website “allows users to evaluate the performance of colleges and state systems on a range of measures, including student progression and graduation rates, graduates’ ability to secure gainful employment, the efficiency and productivity of education-related expenditures, the cost of student attrition, and the amount of financial aid going to students who do not graduate.”
Will the site or the report provide all of the answers? Hardly. But together, they both ask some of the hard questions we need to ask if we are serious about boosting college graduation rates and ensuring our higher ed dollars are delivering real ROI. They also make clear that, as we focus on the need for better data systems and data usage in K-12, the same needs are even more acute in higher education.
One may not like the data or conclusions offered by Schneider, but they jumpstart an important discussion. The challenge before us is to take this discussion and move it to action. How do we take the data from sites like College Measures or Education Trust’s College Results and put it to use? What do state boards of higher education or state legislators do with the information? What do college presidents do with the data? And perhaps most importantly, how do consumers — students themselves — use the available data to make sure they are spending their hard-earned dollars on a higher education that is most likely to result in a degree and a well-paying job?
This morning, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting (in an exclusive, no less) that
Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman has told the city’s mayor that he will resign as schools CEO before the end of the school year. Why, when Huberman has been on the job less than two years? The Sun-Times claims he is quitting the top schools job because Mayor Richard Daley is not running for reelection in 2012, and Huberman has no intention of working for another mayor.
So it begs a big question — is this one of the unintended consequences of mayoral control? Last month, we began the death watch for DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, following the defeat of DC Mayor Adrian Fenty in our nation’s capital’s primary. New mayor, new superintendent. The presumptive mayor of DC, Vincent Gray, has made clear he wants his own person in the chancellor’s chair. Is Huberman simply reading the writing on the wall, assuming that Rahm Emanuel or any of a host of other candidates for mayor in the Windy City will want their own schools CEO?
Urban school superintendent turnover is already a major problem. Our cities chew through school district leaders, with most big-city supes serving in a given job for only two or three years. At the same time, we know that real school improvement takes four, five, or even more years to take hold. With supe tenure and time for turnaround at such odds, is it any wonder that we continue to suffer through persistently low-performing schools, growing drop-out factories, and an embarassing achievement gap?
Don’t get me wrong. Eduflack recognizes the value of mayoral control. We can see the positive impact it has had in cities like New York and Boston. But isn’t an urban supe’s job difficult enough without having to worry about how the political winds are blowing for his boss? Yes, in a mayoral control model, a supe needs to make sure he or she is on the same page as the mayor. But do we really want a cycle where a change in city leadership means a change in school leadership? And do we really want strong supe candidates in cities like DC, Chicago, and Newark to think twice before accepting the job as they wonder if their potential new boss is politically viable beyond the current term (or in Newark’s Booker’s case, moving up to bigger and better things)?
This is one of those weeks that will just be abuzz with talk of education and school improvement. The much-anticipated documentary, Waiting for Superman, is finally out in theaters, drawing good reviews and real attention from a wide range of stakeholders. And yesterday, NBC kicked off its Education Nation effort, as it tries to leverage all of its television properties and sponsorships to provide a week of education-apalooza.
Both of these are interesting events, but they raise even more interesting questions. Will Waiting for Superman play in Middle America? Will Superman’s buzz continue after the reviews are done with? Will NBC continue to focus on education issues after the week-long fest is completed? And most importantly, what comes next?
Don’t get me wrong, both Superman and Education Nation play important roles in raising public awareness of education reform issues. The buzz around the movie will undoubtedly draw in more than just the typical Kool-Aid drinkers. And NBC’s commitment of airtime will be hard to avoid (though not entirely impossible). But then what? What happens once these two “events” are completed?
One of the biggest challenges in education communications is moving from awareness to action. It is (relatively) easy to share information and disseminate the latest news. It is far more difficult to take that information sharing and transform it into a sense of urgency that generates specific activities and measureable outcomes.
Superman’s producers are encouraging viewers to “take action” and “join the debate.” But once you’ve submitted your contact information or sent a form letter to a policymaker, what comes next? If we buy the movie’s premise and agree that our public schools are a scourge on this nation, what specifically can we do fix the problem? It is easy to cast blame, but much harder to move solutions forward. We need questions to ask teachers, principals, and politicians. We need specific asks, be they operational or instructional, that we should demand in our schools. And we the yardsticks to measure progress in our schools.
What comes next is an even more difficult question for NBC. Right now, Education Nation is focused on the current week. It’s about the Summit and the Teacher Town Hall and building on yesterday’s Meet the Press segment. But after
Brookings declared that only 1.4 percent of national news is focused on education, is NBC committed to up its game? Once the week has wrapped up and the Learning Plaza has been shuttered, will NBC provide an education news story on every NBC Nightly News? Will we see a weekly segment? Or will we simply move on to the next “big” idea?
I don’t mean to rain on the edu-parade, but we have seen far too many times efforts that stir up the hornets’ nests and point out the problems and failures of our public schools. Unfortunately, we don’t get much talk of solutions and work plans coming out of that finger pointing. As a result, the problems we talk about today are the same problems we talked about a decade ago and we talked about three decades ago.
Waiting for Superman and Education Nation serve as two potentially valuable levers for school improvement. The challenge before us is how we take advantage of the opportunity and take some real forward steps as a result of it. Otherwise, it is just another opportunity squandered as student achievement remains stagnant and the achievement gap remains a major concern.
It doesn’t get more definitive than this. After calling Vincent Gray’s DC mayoral win on Tuesday “devastating for the schoolchildren of Washington, DC,” DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has all but announced she will resign as head of our nation’s capital’s public schools (and likely be gone well before the end of the this academic year).
So what comes next for a school district that seems to change superintendents as frequently as some kids change their underwear? Yet another schools chief is likely to roll into town (and it could be a retread of someone who has already been in DC), offering yet another approach to school improvement, spending the next few years rearranging the deck chairs.
In a front page story in today’s Washington Post, Bill Turque offers up four possible successors to Rhee. Two would offer us our Back to the Future moment, with the possibility of either current Detroit education czar Robert Bobb or outgoing Newark (NJ) superintendent Cliff Janey returning to DC. Also on Turque’s short list, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the current academic chief in Detroit, or Deborah Gist, current Rhode Island education commissioner and former DC state supe.
For the record, Eduflack loves Gist. What she has done in Rhode Island this past year is nothing short of remarkable. She’s completely overhauled the way the state approaches public education — from instruction to teacher quality to data and all points in between. Gist guided the state to a big Race to the Top win a few weeks ago. Yes, she is facing a new governor come January (and possibly one who has not endorsed the RttT plan), but if she decides to leave Providence, I’m hoping it is to bring her vision to another state in need of forward movement and real improvement.
Janey may be a good man and a fine superintendent, but bringing him back to DC sends the wrong message on the direction of DCPS. Make no mistake, Janey deserves some of the credit for the student test score gains enjoyed under Rhee. And yes, he has a lot of friends here (including the incoming mayor and the teachers’ union). But for those looking closely at DC’s next K-12 move, Janey reflects, rhetorically, a step backward, not a step forward. It may be an unfair characterization, but how can we say DC schools are better off going where they were five years ago?
That leaves us with the two candidates from the Motor City left on Turque’s short list. First things first, Detroit needs to name one of these two its superintendent … and fast. Bobb has done remarkable things in Detroit under very difficult circumstances. And in a desire to bring improvement, he has been open to just about any good idea in the city. He needs to be given time to see those ideas through, and he needs to be given the full authority over both finances and instruction a real superintendent deserves. So it Detroit is forced to pick, and either Bobb or Byrd-Bennett would be strong choices, does DC really want to settle for the candidate Detroit didn’t want?
So where does that leave us? Over the last few days, the future of DCPS has focused on the traditional. Eduflack has heard names like Rudy Crew (formerly of NYC and Miami-Dade), Arlene Ackerman (currently of Philly and formerly of San Fran and DC), and others who seem to take the tour of the great urban schools circuit. But is that what DC needs? Is DC simply looking for a steady hand who understands the job of superintendent, or does it need someone who will think differently and not know what isn’t allowed?
After the Rhee experiment, Tuesday’s victorious parties are not going to be in any mood to find another outside-the-box candidate. As much as a district like DC would benefit from a leader like Rhee or NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, that just isn’t in the cards. We are likely looking for candidates who are all too familiar with the urban supe musical chairs game. It makes for an easy decision for Gray and company, but it may not be the best thing for DC’s school children.
So who will it be? Janey? Crew? Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall? Out west, the biggest supe search is currently Clark County, NV, or the Las Vegas Schools. Yesterday, they named their three finalists — Colorado Education Commissioner Dwight Jones, Dallas ISD Superintenden Michael Hinojosa, and Lee County (FL) Supe James Browder. Do we get one of the two that fail to hit it big in Sin City? Only time will tell …
Eduflack By Patrick R. Riccards 