The New York Times, echoing Petrilli, Finn and Hess, warns that Congress has to make sure the proposed economic stimulus package does not undermine education reform. “The money needs to be targeted in a way that forces the states to adopt reforms required under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002,” argues an editorial in this morning’s paper.
Arne Duncan, the education secretary, has a burgeoning discretionary budget that can be used to reward those states that embrace reform and prod those states that continue to lag. Mr. Duncan’s main goal should be to replace a wildly uneven patchwork of standards with a coherent system of national standards and tests that would allow parents to know, at last, how their schools compare with schools elsewhere in the country.
A pretty high profile endorsement for a common sense reform. Now, will someone please sit down with the editorial board of the Times and explain the difference between clear and coherent content standards and squishy skills or performance standards, before this turns into a case of be careful what you wish for?
A meme on the march:
“Republicans that want to kill No Child Left Behind in its entirety should also propose to eliminate its $25 billion or so dollars for k-12 education. If that sounds like a poison pill, here’s an idea: push for transparency, via national standards and tests, instead of “accountability” via the heavy hand of Washington.” — Mike Petrilli, Fordham Foundation.
“A Republican education agenda should have three key elements: decentralization, transparency and parental empowerment.” — Lance T. Izumi, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy
“The federal role should be to provide accurate information about student performance. It should be left to states and districts to devise sanctions and reforms.” — Diane Ravitch
The Gates Foundation “will advocate for the politically thorny goal of national standards — and will aim to write its own standards and its own national test,” reports Elizabeth Green at Gotham Schools.
The edusphere is reacting with arched eyebrows. “Gates-made national standards creep me out a little bit,” says Alexander Russo at This Week in Education, “I’d rather the states or the USDE develop the tests than the Gates Foundation do it.” At Eduwonkette, Aaron Pallas, aka “skoolboy,” laughed out loud at Green’s piece.
Does anybody else think this is a really, really bad idea? I’m delighted that the Gates Foundation has realized that throwing money at small schools didn’t work, but I’m not prepared to turn over the public’s interest in what is to be taught and learned to a private philanthropy, no matter how civic-minded it may be.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but industry lobbyists regularly play a role in policy and legislation where they have enormous self-interest with nary a peep. If it’s ok for the insurance industry to write health care legislation or the oil industry to craft energy policy, how could weighing in on national standards and assessments possibly be out of bounds for Gates, which has no dog in the fight outside of its reputational capital?
Bring it.
Add KIPP founder Mike Feinberg to the chorus of voices calling for national standards and assessments. In an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, Feinberg calls on President-elect Obama to choose an education secretary who is “committed to accountability and public school choice.”
President-elect Obama should pick a secretary of education who deeply understands the issues of funding and accountability on the federal, state and local levels, and who is passionate about student achievement and growth. Having one national test with one rigorous set of national standards will ensure our children can compete in the global marketplace as well as help parents know how well their children are progressing in school.
I’m increasingly convinced Diane Ravitch has the exact right approach to this with her recent call for national testing based on coherent curriculum standards, but without stakes or sanctions. “The federal role should be to provide accurate information about student performance,” she wrote recently. “It should be left to states and districts to devise sanctions and reforms. If states and localities don’t want to improve their schools, then we are in deeper trouble as a nation than any law passed by Congress can fix.”
In his op-ed, Feinberg also calls for streamlined pathways to the teaching profession, the growth of public charter schools, and a focus on pre-K and early childhood education.
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