From the editor
This week’s $787 billion question: will the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed here in Denver today by President Obama, herald education reform’s salvation, or its doom?
It’s not that simple, of course. The roughly $100 billion (what’s a few hundred million among friends?) for education could pump some much-needed cash into public education in a time of dire need. But it could also be money down a rat hole if it does little more than perpetuate the status quo.
How this will play out is anyone’s guess. Education Secretary Arne Duncan talks a good game, vowing to use the money to drive systemic reforms. Time will tell.
Meanwhile, here is a sampling of advice and opinion from across the country, and the political spectrum:
Most state education departments will be overwhelmed by the task of getting these funds flowing to school districts. That will probably lead to paralysis and a compliance mentality. We saw this during the Katrina relief effort. Hundreds of millions of dollars sat unspent in government coffers because state and local officials weren't sure what they could allocate the money toward. So they waited for direction from Washington rather than take chances that could get them in trouble. A similar dynamic is likely this time around. You need to offer them swift, clear guidance about the nuts-and-bolts of spending this money. But just as important is to encourage states (and districts) to push the envelope, be creative, and use this opportunity to embrace meaningful reform. Your rhetoric about "racing to the top" is a good start, but you should encourage your partners to think big about the entire stimulus package.
--Checker Finn and Mike Petrelli, Education Gadfly
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has enormous potential to improve the quality of our nation’s public schools. This legislation represents a historic investment in children’s futures that could eventually change the very future of this nation. This is an opportunity that cannot be squandered…
To solve the pressing problems confronting our economy and schools, national leadership by the Obama administration and the teachers’ unions will be needed. We have to move the conversation about teacher quality beyond a narrow debate over merit pay and job protection, to one focused more broadly on how to ensure that teachers receive adequate support and training to meet the academic needs of their students, and to ascertain their effectiveness in the classroom…
We know that America’s school systems need more than just money to fix the many problems they face, and that increased funding alone will not produce better results. New approaches to educating children and managing schools and districts are required to bring about the kinds of changes we wish to see. Policies and systems must be in place to promote best practices in teaching, reward high performers, and provide opportunities for feedback and development for those in need of improvement…
Finally, while teacher quality is crucial, sustainable school improvement can only be achieved if there is leadership development on a district wide basis. We need a new generation of leaders who possess the skills required to engage in “positive deviance”—employing the tactics essential to achieve success within an otherwise failing or mediocre system.
--Pedro Noguera and Alan M. Blankstein, Education Week
The bottom line is that more than $147 billion in federal "education stimulus" will prolong the dysfunctional qualities of the United States education system. It is one of the most expensive and most mediocre K-12 systems in the world. Throwing more money at public schools without addressing the problems inherent in the system - lack of accountability and lack of competition - will simply drive up education costs with little to show for the money.
The best outcome would be to avoid a federal education bailout altogether. However, if an education stimulus is inevitable, it should at least demand some concessions from the education establishment before doling out $120 billion.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Only give money to school districts whose labor unions agree to "flat contracts" that offer flexible employee practices such as firing for "just cause" and are willing to suspend seniority and tenure in exchange for merit-pay.
2. Only give money to school districts that will report transparent budget numbers at the "school level" so parents and taxpayers can see how much money a school spends on education in real dollars and not district averages. It is important to know how much money is siphoned off at district offices and for administrative costs - and how much money actually makes it into the classroom.
3. Prioritize money for, or give incentives to, districts that attach per-pupil funding to the backs of children, letting parents choose the public school (or dare I say charter or private school) that best suits their child.
If the government is going to give the money away anyway, it might as well empower parents and teachers rather than the status quo, which is failing miserably.
--Lisa Snell, Reason
President Obama has called for a focus on “what works” in federal programs. Education is an area that very much needs more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Per pupil expenditures for K-12 education in the U.S. are already dramatically above the average for the rest of the developed world while the performance of our students is middling on international assessments. There is a real danger that the recovery bill will take opportunities for education reform out of the hands of the Administration and Congress for at least the next two years by guaranteeing large increments in federal funding to schools with no strings attached and little accountability.
Once that money starts flowing, it will be very hard to turn the spigot off. This portends a fundamental shift towards more federal and less state and local funding of public education, and probably towards much higher levels of spending in general. That may be desirable, but it is a policy that deserves robust public debate.
--Grover J. Whitehurst, The Brookings Institution
As I read over countless commentaries, it strikes me that education components of the stimulus package have one thing in common with other aspects of our current economic crisis: no one actually has the foggiest notion what, if anything, will work. It’s a scary time, but in its own odd way exciting as well.