| Grading the Bush education plan Whether you like the thrust of President Bush’s sweeping plan for K-12 education reform, now being debated in Congress, or think it’s way off base, one thing is clear already: it’s spurred a needed and candid dialogue on our schools. Americans are frustrated with educators because we seem to keep spending more money on primary education – yet in too many cases, and particularly in the inner cities and minority communities, still not getting enough results. Merely talking about this doesn’t solve the problem, but it’s an essential first step, and Republicans and Democrats in the Congress and around the country should be commended for entering the discussion. As a career public school teacher (14 years) and administrator (16 years), my reaction to the plan might be summed up as “an enthusiastic yes – but.” What that means is, President Bush is right that schools need to focus less on inputs, and more on performance. Specifically, we need to make sure students learn to read, write, and do their basic math and science. And he is right again in thinking that accountability must mean regular measurement (student testing) and incentives (linking funding to performance) if it is to have any meaning. That’s the “enthusiastic yes” part. Under the Bush plan, schools receiving many types of federal funding will have to show they’re producing results. This doesn’t mean – at least in present versions of the plan – any kind of federally written or administered test. But it does mean states and local schools will have to draw up and implement tests that pass muster in Washington, D.C., and then show certain levels of achievement and improvement in scores in order to keep getting full funding. Schools and states that don’t perform will lose funds. In some cases, money formerly passing through the states and school districts will be given directly to parents to spend as they see fit. Those that perform will keep getting funding and, indeed, can expect a rough tripling of federal education spending over the next eight years. The “but” part of my reaction has to do with two reservations. The first has to do with the human side of the equation. Teachers must have time to work with children on their skills at talking to people, accepting change or criticism, developing friendships – things that don’t show up on written tests. President Bush personally seems committed to this view and this goal, but there’s always the danger the program will create incentives to ignore or underemphasize the full development of people. The other “but” centers around whether the federal government will apply these new standards instead of the thousands of other rules, regulations, and red tape it applies to local schools, or in addition to them. If the plan shifts the federal focus to funding based on performance, there will be a culture shift in schools, and, with less micro-management on all the inputs, teachers and administrators will be freed to teach kids instead of filling out forms. If it leaves all the current micro-management in place, however, and then adds on new demands that schools produce results, the results will be mixed at best, and educators will lack the time, resources, and sheer focus to shift their emphasis as the Bush plan wants. It’s worth noting that under Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H. Bush, and Clinton, there were similar efforts to focus on results, get back to basics, and provide money based on performance. (Each one of those presidents also expanded federal spending on education significantly, although it’s debatable how much of this money actually reached the teachers and children.) But in each case, the “change in emphasis” wound up being merely an added burden. Over the last 20 years, federal regulations on education more than doubled, and the burden of meeting them, and documenting them, rose even more sharply. It’s the biggest single reason why the United States, according to OECD data, spends far more on “non-teaching personnel” than any other industrialized country. And it may be a contributing factor to the continuing frustration with local school officials that so little of the extra federal and state money “spent on education” actually reaches them. There are hopeful signs that this debate is headed in the right direction. In April, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who has tirelessly pursed the problem of mismanagement and over-regulation at the Department of Education – which recently admitted it “can’t find” an estimated $450 million in funds – suggested, as one public school teacher put it, that “if schools should be accountable, maybe the Department of Education should be too.” Within a week, Education Secretary Paige promised to clean up the Department and promised he will hold his staff “as accountable as I would any school.” At about the same time, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), hardly known as an advocate of smaller government, insisted that schools receiving certain types of federal money be relieved of other regulation. The White House, according to Education Daily, promptly agreed. Although Kennedy’s proposal applied only to a narrow set of programs, it’s a principle that can and should be applied more broadly. Even so, as a recent study by the non-partisan Teacher Choice education group put it, the current versions of the Bush plan being drawn up in Congress leave much to be desired in terms of reducing the mountains of regulation. What can educators and voters around the country do? The best is to keep the heat on our elected officials for making schools produce results. For my money, that means keeping the Bush focus on performance – but making sure it’s balanced by a reduction in other strings and red tape from Washington. And that we also concentrate on developing the human spirit in students in order to build citizens, people who care about their country and each other. Accountability is, to be sure, a good thing for schools. Which is why it’s good for us citizens, and our elected officials, as well. Ruth Smith is president of Highland Community College in Freeport, IL, and a senior fellow with Teacher Choice, a national association of teachers and educators who support choices, accountability, and reduced regulation in education. The group’s web site is www.adti.net/teacherchoice. |