November 2010 Archives

Albert Einstein reportedly once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." As I note in my new book, The Same Thing Over and Over: How School Reformers Get Stuck in Yesterday's Ideas, apocryphal or not, this line is a devastating assessment of a half century's worth of school reform. To avoid educational insanity, we need to recognize how circumstances have changed and embrace a diverse array of reform efforts suited to the twenty-first century.

A year ago, my friend Diane Ravitch raised a furor when she charged in The Death and Life of the Great American School System that advocates of test-based accountability, mayoral control, and charter schooling had overpromised and naively imagined that these structural measures could "fix" schooling. This ferocious blast was well-timed and well-aimed, and resonated mightily. Ravitch went much further, however, labeling such measures a sinister assault on public education. Her useful blast at faddism got ensnared in a familiar trap: her stance allows the compromises and accidents from a century ago that shaped today's public schools and districts to define the mission and scope of future public schooling. Thus, attempts to rethink governance, teacher evaluation, or incentives become "attacks" on public schooling.

The temptation to define the purpose of schooling based on the familiar leaves us wedded to arrangements that may have made sense a century ago, but that are poorly suited to today's goals, tools, and resources. If these goals and tools have changed--and they have--it is only sensible to question whether yesterday's concessions and chance decisions ought to steer our course. The proper measure of whether proposals are consistent with public schooling ought not be whether power, politics, or finances shift, but whether we are doing a better job of educating all children so they master essential knowledge and skills, develop their gifts, and are prepared for the duties of citizenship.

Harvard University Press officially launched The Same Thing last week. To get a feel for the argument, check out my November AEI Education Outlook "Doing the Same Thing Over and Over." Or, if you're inclined to something more rambunctious, featuring a healthy dollop of guest stars, check the live stream of today's AEI launch event today from 5:30-7:00 p.m. EST. The event will feature Indiana state chief Tony Bennett, Louisiana chief Paul Pastorek, Gates Foundation policy chieftain Stephanie Sanford, and yours truly tussling over what "reformers" are getting right, what they're getting wrong, and how to avoid repeating a half-century's worth of familiar missteps. I think it's safe to say that my critique of popular reforms like mayoral control, online instruction, and merit pay as frequently failing to break free from yesterday's assumptions will provoke sharp insights and hard-hitting pushback from these heavyweights. Hope you get a chance to tune in and check it out.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Got some terrific reactions to last week's post, which argued (shockingly) that a dollar spent on special education is one we can't spend on other children--and that policymakers would therefore do well to focus less on "rights" and more on trade-offs. This is doubly true given that the primary challenge for children with special needs today is one of quality rather than access, and that there's good reason to question whether vast special ed outlays are delivering on that score.

Three takes particularly worth sharing. The first is from a principal who commented on RHSU:

As the principal of a public school, I don't understand why the parents of general education students have not filed a class action lawsuit demanding that their children have equal access to public money. At our school, we spend about twice the money given to us by the government for special education students. That extra 100% comes directly from the general operating funds. For example, when a child enrolled in our school with a need for a one-on-one adult assistant, I had to cancel the after-school tutoring that served about 60 low-income students who were behind grade level in reading and math.

Budgets are simple math. You get X dollars. If you have to spend $30,000 per year on an adult assistant for one child you must cut $30,000 from other programs. I get about $8000 to educate one child for an entire year. So this child is using up his money, and the money allotted for 3.5 additional children. When we have the annual meeting to discuss what support an individual special needs child should have, we are forbidden by law to discuss or take into account the cost of the services being discussed. That is crazy. Every other aspect of my budget requires a consideration of costs, but special needs must not be thought of in that framework. I want special education kids to have extra support and services, but I believe that those services should not be funded if they would deprive other children of educational services.

While pandering pols are scared to say it, and while the intimidating special needs lobby will punish those who speak up, parents and teachers are only too aware that these outlays and mandates frequently disappoint. (As one parent of a special needs child wrote, "I'm glad you took [this question] on because the special ed lobby is really scary.") Consider this story from an accomplished edu-consultant who also happens to be the mom of a child with special needs. She writes:

Rick recently posted on special education and griped that Secretary Duncan's "New Normal" doesn't seem to apply when he is pandering to powerful lobbying groups like those supporting IDEA. But I think both Rick and Secretary Duncan missed a fabulous opportunity to call for scrutiny over special education spending. Let me give an example from my life to illustrate the point.

I have attended 19 [Individualized Education Program] meetings in 19 months, each averaging about 2 hours. The school and school district have, on average, 6 attendees from the principal to the classroom teacher and many specialists in between. I estimate that these meetings have cost the district about $14,000, based on my back of the envelope calculation using the 2010 pay scale for the district. As the parent, these meetings have cost me close to $15,000 in lost wages and lawyer and child advocate fees.

So, over the past 19 months, the district spent $37,000 on my daughter's education (the district's per pupil expenditure and the cost of IEP meetings), and I've spent at least $26,000 (IEP meetings, private testing and tutoring). I'm sure there are additional costs associated with the testing they did, administrative time to deal with the reams of paperwork, extended school year, etc., but I think I made my point--a lot of money was spent to teach my daughter to read and it didn't work. She can't read and she's miserable about that. The district and I are that much poorer, and at least for my part, I'm spitting mad.

How could we have done things differently?

For starters, it cost $3,000 to have my daughter tested and her disability properly identified. (The district misidentified her disability and provided inappropriate and completely unhelpful services and accommodations for more than a year.) For $3,500, I hired a private speech language pathologist who improved my daughter's reading skills a whole grade level during intensive tutoring sessions over 3 weeks this past summer.

Private schools that specialize in teaching students with learning differences charge between $27,000 and $33,000 in tuition. Having spent time in three such schools, I have no doubt my daughter would be able to read if she had attended any of these school this past year.

Unlike many parents, I have the resources to pay private school tuition and starting next year, I will. Having said that, if there was a special education voucher in my state, I would have been out of that school faster than you can say IDEA and saved everyone a lot of money. I believe that parents need more options and that we can find a way to do more with a lot less.

And, finally, Liz Wisniewski responded to Mike Petrilli's sharp post on special ed spending, writing:

I agree, there is a significant problem with special education spending. How can I not agree? The first school I worked at was devastated when a family with three children who needed $100,000 worth of services moved into town. Two classroom teachers were laid off to hire the required sped teachers, this resulted in all fifth and six graders in the school being adversely impacted.

Districts are pummeled when children with severe emotional problems need to be sent to specialized school, since these children cannot safely be included in the regular classroom. Such schools that deal with these students can cost the district $75,000 per student.

But a "war" on special education scares me because I worry that [special needs] students...will be nickeled and dimed out of the minimal services they need, during the attack. But you are right, a focused discussion on egregious special education spending is needed. Let's just not [throw the baby] out with the bathwater.

Liz offers a terrific place to start getting serious. Let's stop groveling before the attorneys or going supine when confronted with a special ed horror story. Instead, let's talk bluntly about the laws, policies, and practices that can help educators spend limited resources in a way that's fair to all our kids.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The problems with unaffordable, anachronistic teacher pensions have finally started to get the attention they should've gotten years ago. Andy Rotherham recently wrote a terrific column laying the issue out, and some of the new Republican governors—most prominently Rick Snyder, the former Gateway executive who was just elected Michigan's governor—have signaled they're going to confront pensions head-on. Snyder has flat-out said that he doesn't think Michigan's system of public employee compensation is affordable. Newly elected GOP governors John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin have sounded similar notes—making Chris Christie's no-nonsense stance with New Jersey's public employee unions look less an oddity and more a template for reform-minded Republicans.

This is an issue I've been harping on for a better part of a decade, so I'm delighted to see this growing interest. As Juliet Squire and I explain in "But the Pension Fund Was Just Sitting There...," an article in the most recent issue of Education Finance and Policy, the gist of the situation can be easily grasped through the lens of an iconic comic strip:

In a memorable "Doonesbury" comic strip from the late 1970s, Garry Trudeau's Raoul Duke, serving as general manager of the Washington Redskins, improbably signed star free agent "Lava Lava" Lenny. When asked how he had pulled off this remarkable feat, Duke insisted he had not spent "a penny more than he's worth! I swear it! Besides, the pension fund was just sitting there!" (Trudeau 1979).

In this punch line Trudeau captured the tension at the heart of pension politics--the incentive to focus on the here and now and appease today's claimants at the expense of long term concerns and more dispersed constituencies. Those temptations are rife when it comes to retirement systems in the private and public sectors alike. In the private sector, rules and regulations seek to tame corner cutting and shortsighted behavior, with varying degrees of success. But for public pension funds, including those that cover teachers, the primary safeguard is the self-discipline of public officials and the hope that they will not be unduly tempted by short-term electoral considerations and influential constituencies.

Juliet and I argue that teacher pensions pose two challenges for K-12 schooling. The first is the temptation for irresponsible fiscal stewardship. Pensions are in the business of delayed gratification. Public officials are not, and they often make commitments to employees that outstrip the available funds. The second challenge is that pension arrangements hinder efforts to boost teacher quality by embodying an industrial era model of compensation and benefits that make it tougher to attract educated talent in today's labor market. While the alignment of the political stars has occasionally helped states and localities address the first challenge, hardly any have demonstrated a willingness to tackle the second.

What to do about all this?

First, understand that pension politics are characterized by four simple truths. Elected officials will always have incentives to emphasize the short term, making it necessary to create institutions that ameliorate that temptation or reward attention to the long term. Reform typically will happen when the broader public is stirred and its electoral might is leveraged to neutralize the familiar advantages of the employee unions. Legislators and governors rarely accept responsibility for poor stewardship or extravagant promises, especially since they are able to blame pension managers for funding shortfalls. Finally, modifying pension systems requires addressing concerns of veterans who will feel cheated, selling the advantages to younger educators, and designing systems that clearly stand to boost teacher quality so as to engage education reformers in the effort.

There are at least three options that pension reformers might pursue to reshape the political context or alter the balance of power. The first is a "starve-the-beast" strategy, which ensures that new dollars are devoted to fulfilling existing obligations, countering the tendency to use any new dollars to expand benefits. Employee unions have consistently and successfully urged legislators to spend any available dollars on new benefits, suggesting a perverse discipline implicit in curtailing available revenues.

Second, reform requires that proponents change the context of the political debate by agitating and mobilizing the public and clarifying the costs of current arrangements. This is extraordinarily difficult to do—especially given that rewards for public officials who step up and take on pension reform are almost nonexistent. The reality is that it typically happens only when a fiscal crisis throws existing policy choices into stark relief.

Third, there are tools and institutional innovations that can better enable public officials to make the kinds of difficult choices needed to reform outdated policies and provide responsible fiscal stewardship. One approach is to craft rules that temper short-term political incentives, such as regulations boosting the autonomy of auditors. Another might entail creating a new body with the authority to police public pensions and to establish guidelines regarding matters like fund balances and anticipated rates of return. Yet another can involve new legislative rules which slow down the granting of benefits and require that legislators reconcile their books more assiduously.

If interested, check out the article, where we work through these issues in more depth and with the assistance of several eye-popping examples.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A couple months back, I posted a copy of an internal Houston Federation of Teachers (HFT) memorandum which laid out the HFT's hostility towards the Houston Independent School District's (HISD) mentoring proposal. You think the HFT was chastened at all by this going public? Doesn't appear so.

Below is another, much more recent HFT communication to its members blasting HISD's effort to revamp its teacher evaluation system in collaboration with the highly regarded organization The New Teacher Project (TNTP). A Houston source was kind enough to send this along. I especially like the calls for secret tapings and the suggestion that "polite" teachers are putting their jobs on the line.

Subject: New Teacher Evaluation:

Dear Members,

Pass to all campus [sic].

Read the article below. This is where the new evaluation is heading, 50% based on value added (EVASS). Members on the SDMCs [shared decision-making councils] need to speak up BEFORE this is policy. Email HFT with reports about the amount of actual input the SDMC groups have in this process so that we can report this to TEA as a process that did not follow the TEA guidelines for developing a new evaluation for the district. Better, we are asking for members to tape thee [sic] meetings and provide us with a recording. No one need know who had the recorder. Send us copies of materials given out in these meetings. NOW is the time to do this, not after it is in place.

Remember health care? We informed members and asked them to call the HISD Board BEFORE it was voted on. Now it is done and there is nothing that can be done about it because members did not make those calls and the Board saw no opposition from the teachers. But HFT gets calls everyday asking what the union is doing about the higher insurance cost!

Don't let them run over you with this, this will cost many teachers (maybe you) their jobs next year if it becomes the policy. The union is the 7,000 members, not the eight people in the office. What will YOU do to stop this? Will you send one email to save your job? Will you speak up in a meeting, or be "polite" and out of work next year?

Curious about the "article" referred to in the first sentence? Looks like it was pulled from a website of uncertain origin. Entitled "The New Teacher Project's Evaluation Standards Mirror Rhee's," it pointed out that HISD partner TNTP favors a design similar to the performance assessment adopted in Washington, DC. The article said, "TNTP standards suggests counting value-added data...when its [sic] available, for 50 percent of a teacher's evaluation. The rest of a teacher's assessment would be made up of classroom observations (30 percent) and alternative measures of student learning, like 'progress toward Individual Education Plan goals, district-wide or teacher-generated assessments, and end-of-course tests' (20 percent)."

The article explained, "Value-added data is merely a sub-component of one of TNTP's evaluation system guidelines. The six tenets are: evaluations should happen at the very least annually; the standards that teachers will be held to should be clearly and explicitly spelled out; instructors should be evaluated via multiple factors; ratings should come in four to five levels (as opposed to simply 'satisfactory' and 'unsatisfactory'); and the ratings should be significant, bearing on whether a teacher gets tenure, their salary, and employment decisions."

Clearly TNTP's proposals are devious, dangerous stuff.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Question: What do Arne Duncan, Sarah Palin, Tom Harkin, and Mike Enzi all have in common? Answer: They, along with just about every other figure in education, turn into pandering sops the moment somebody mentions special education or IDEA.

They'll dwell on how the feds need to fully fund their share, the rights of these families, and the need to do a better job of identifying and addressing special needs. All fair enough points. The problem is that none of our leaders can then bring themselves to utter the simple truth: "But we have an obligation to serve all our children, and responsible leadership means we have to weigh costs and benefits when it comes to allocating dollars, time, and energy." Instead, they'll hide behind sentimental stories, legal requirements (ignoring that the laws are just codifying federal policies), and a determined silence regarding the staggering costs of special education today. Acting upon this simple dictum is no straightforward matter, giving existing statutes and case law—but merely voicing the principle could exert a bracing discipline.

Last week was the 35th anniversary of IDEA, and the craven parade was on full display. A day after giving a terrific speech on the need to get serious about cost-effectiveness and stop pretending that edu-dollars grow on trees, Secretary Duncan gave an anniversary speech that cheerfully listed entitlements the law conveys without ever once suggesting that these carried any kind of cost.

Look, as the Secretary said, when it was passed, "[IDEA] was a major civil rights victory... In 1975, more than one million children with disabilities were being turned away from school altogether. Hundreds of thousands of children with severe disabilities were in institutions that didn't meet their needs." That's absolutely true. But times change. The major challenge for special education today is not access, but quality. As we try to better serve children with special needs, it's vital to recognize that we don't have endless resources—and that open-ended promises to some mean stripping resources away from others.

Now, past experience teaches that this little post will garner more than the usual amount of irate comments from the very organized, very sympathetic special needs lobby—but this really shouldn't register as a radical plea. All I'm saying is that I'd love to hear leaders occasionally address special ed not with an eye to placating the potent force that is the special ed community, but in terms of how we ought to best balance our obligations to all of our children.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:46 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has named former USA Today publisher and Hearst Magazines chief Cathie Black as the next chancellor of the New York City schools. The move prompted the predictable outrage among those who believe that only former teachers should lead schools or districts. Patrick Sullivan, a New York City Board of Education member, wrote to State Education Commissioner David Steiner, slamming Black for lacking teaching and administrative experience, academic credentials in education, public sector experience, and exposure to public schooling. Julie Cavanagh, a special ed. teacher in Brooklyn, said, "To not have an educator at the helm as the person who's managing and implementing those policies, making those kinds of decisions, it's very dangerous." Henry Giroux argued that Black's appointment represents an attack on "public education and its traditional role as a guardian of civic values, democratic politics, and public culture." He explains, "Management divorced from leadership privatizes hope, de-skills teachers, treats students as consumers, and exhibits an utter disdain for any mode of knowledge that cannot be reduced to empirical forms of measurement." Former Chancellor Rudy Crew opined, in more measured (if equally banal) terms, "The production cycle of a third-grader learning the skills of reading comprehension is quite different from that of a magazine."

These concerns aren't my concerns. I think schools and districts pose a diverse array of leadership challenges, and that leaders facing different challenges will require various skills. Sometimes, familiarity with K-12 is a huge asset. Other times, the experiences, worldview, and skills that come with that background may actually be a hindrance. I see experience in a school district, in school leadership, or in dealing with the public sector as important assets, which ought to be weighed alongside know-how in transforming and redesigning organizations, boosting cost-effectiveness, recruiting talented personnel, managing vendor relationships, and so forth. I think Joel Klein's skills and experience—as a CEO, top-shelf lawyer, high-ranking Clinton administration official, and NYC product—made him a phenomenal fit for the job.

But, just as it's naive and simple-minded to insist "you need to be an educator to lead schools," it's equally misguided to imagine that executives are interchangeable. The line offered up by Bloomberg and the usual "reform" crowd is that a business leader is needed to execute now that Klein's got the reform agenda well underway. Okay, but why Black? It's silly to suggest that a good CEO can pick up and successfully sidle into the executive suite of any other firm, just because they've got some kind of magical "business skills." After all, the chancellor must wrestle with powerful public employee unions, be a savvy political operative, work with Albany, and be willing to wake up every day to public critiques and irate parents.

Ominously missing from the mayor's office so far is any explanation of why Black—aside from being a generic business executive—is the right person for this particular job. The message seems to be that any respected CEO in the mayor's Rolodex would be up to the task of handling tough budgets and building upon Klein's efforts. I'd been wondering whether this impression was just the product of me being too far removed from NYC goings-on. But I spent yesterday in New York, had the opportunity to chat with a number of folks who are pretty sympathetic to Bloomberg and engaged in school reform, and found no one inclined to challenge that take.

Indeed, the mayor's statement announcing Black was dismal on this score. In the big press release putting her name forward, the entire discussion of her particular skills, experiences, or expertise consisted of: "The Mayor selected Black to follow Klein as Chancellor because of her unique experience building on successes and leading teams to even greater achievements, including her stewardship of Hearst Magazines for the last decade and a half. Black is also widely credited with building USA Today into an unprecedented success in her eight years there, and broke through an important gender barrier in 1979 when she became the first publisher of a weekly consumer magazine, New York." The release quoted Bloomberg saying, "Cathie Black is a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector. She is brilliant, she is innovative, she is driven—and there is virtually nobody who knows more about the needs of the 21st century workforce for which we need to prepare our kids."

None of that much reassured me. To make things worse, our intrepid friends at the Gotham Schools blog have noted: "In her memoir-cum-business advice guide, Basic Black, the chancellor appointee describes her skills as far more attuned to sales and marketing than financial analysis. While she likes the operational side of business, she writes, 'Too much data and too many spreadsheets make my eyes glaze over.'" Again, not exactly the ideal testimonial from someone coming in to wrestle with budget cuts and execution.

Black might be terrific. I've never met her and know nothing about her. But nothing that's been said on her behalf thus far reassures me that she's right for the job or demonstrates that Bloomberg thought carefully about why she was the right choice for this crucial post. Fortunately, there's much time until she takes the helm and both Black and Bloomberg would be well-advised to use the next six weeks to make the case that she's a promising pick—and not just a CEO looking for a new challenge.

Posted by Rick Hess at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Now that was a four-bagger.

Lord knows, I've been pretty critical of the Secretary of Education on various counts (see here, here, here... you get the idea). So, let me give him his due. Yesterday, the Secretary weighed in on the pressing need to start spending school dollars smarter in one humdinger of a speech. Duncan touched on every important issue, pulled no punches, and modeled the kind of responsible tough-mindedness that we need from our leaders (full disclosure: the speech was delivered at AEI and I hosted--you can view the speech and subsequent Q&A here).

Department wordsmith David Whitman crafted a masterful speech, which the Secretary delivered without batting an eye. Duncan opened by saying flat out, "I am here to talk today about what has been called the New Normal. For the next several years, preschool, K-12, and postsecondary educators are likely to face the challenge of doing more with less... [This] can, and should be, embraced as an opportunity to make dramatic improvements... It's time to stop treating the problem of educational productivity as a grinding, eat-your-broccoli exercise. It's time to start treating it as an opportunity for innovation and accelerating progress."

Straight up, this was a speech unlike any I've ever heard a Secretary deliver. Duncan said resources are limited, embraced the need to make tough choices, urged states and districts to contemplate boosting some class sizes and consolidating schools, and didn't spend much time trying to throw bones to the status quo. He laid out the bleak revenue picture ahead and then waded into ways that states and districts can save bucks without taking stupid steps like "reducing the number of days in the school year, slashing instructional time spent on task, eliminating the arts and foreign languages, abandoning promising reforms, and laying off talented, young teachers."

The Secretary also finally struck a useful note regarding the stimulus and Edujobs—one that, whatever one thinks of these bills, many of us have been urging him to say for quite a while. Duncan said that the bailouts, while he thought them necessary, were a finished chapter, and that states and districts now need to focus on getting their houses in order. In other words, states shouldn't count on coming back to the D.C. bailout drawer. A little late for him to say this, to my mind, but better late than never.

Duncan made clear the financial drag of the status quo, saying, "The factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century. Today, our schools must prepare all students for college and careers—and do far more to personalize instruction and employ the smart use of technology. Teachers cannot be interchangeable widgets. Yet the legacy of the factory model of schooling is that tens of billions of dollars are tied up in unproductive use of time and technology, in underused school buildings, in antiquated compensation systems, and in inefficient school finance systems."

And his to-do list was spot on. He said, "Rethinking policies around seat-time requirements, class size, compensating teachers based on their educational credentials, the use of technology in the classroom, inequitable school financing, the over placement of students in special education—almost all of these potentially transformative productivity gains are primarily state and local issues that have to be grappled with."

And, in a pleasant surprise, Duncan didn't shy from specifics. In blunt but measured prose, he tackled topics that are often verboten. He said, "Districts currently pay about $8 billion each year to teachers because they have masters' degrees, even though there is little evidence teachers with masters degrees improve student achievement more than other teachers—with the possible exception of teachers who earn masters in math and science."

He continued, "Or consider the debate around reducing class size. Up through third grade, research shows a small class size of 13 to 17 students can boost achievement. Parents, like myself, understandably like smaller classes...and it is good news that the size of classes in the U.S. has steadily shrunk for decades. But in secondary schools, districts may be able to save money without hurting students, while allowing modest but smartly targeted increases in class size." Duncan laudably argued against gutting arts, music, and sports in a mindless effort to protect small classes, and pointed out that schools in South Korea and Japan excel with class sizes much larger than ours.

In the Q&A, Duncan didn't let up a lick. In my favorite remark, he said that unions "absolutely" have "to change and reform," but he then let boards, supes, and the U.S. Department of Ed have it with both barrels. He said, "We don't talk enough about dysfunctional school boards. Ultimately, unions don't set school budgets, school boards do. And school boards have often shown a tremendous lack of courage, having nothing to do with union challenges. Superintendents often care about their political longevity more than doing the right thing...I'm talking about our [U.S.] Department of Education, [which] I think, in many cases has been a huge part of the problem... I promise you, we're looking in the mirror every day to say how do we stop being this compliance-driven bureaucracy and how do we support innovation." As my friend Mike Petrilli would say: Boom!

The Secretary of Education cannot "solve" these problems. And it's not his job to do so. As Duncan said, "I want to be clear. I am not recommending a specific course of action today to any state or district. I am urging state and districts [to] start to think more boldly about ways to improve educational productivity." But the Secretary can play a crucial role here, as he did yesterday. He can set down powerful markers.

He can make it safer for superintendents and state chiefs to talk about productivity and efficiency alongside student learning. He can make it safe to talk about labor-saving technologies, new staffing approaches, and school closures as part and parcel of reform—and not just the unpleasant medicine of the green-eyeshade crowd. He can put seemingly controversial ideas, like the "gold star teacher initiative," on the table for district consideration—as he essentially did yesterday.

And the U.S. Department of Education can play a huge part. It can scour its regulations to make it easier for states and districts to spend dollars smart. It can reduce paperwork and compliance burdens. It can fund and disseminate research and tools that help state and local officials gauge cost-effective programs and services. It can help push an often hostile education establishment to embrace notions of "productivity" and "cost-effectiveness."

I've previously criticized Duncan and the administration for taking the easy path when it came to the stimulus or Edujobs. Yesterday seemed to signal an inspiring change in course. Now the only question is follow-through—will this prove to have been a one-time speech, or something more than that? I think I can safely say that, if it's the latter, the Secretary has found a propitious time to deliver the message and a winning window for bipartisan collaboration.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I've gotten a number of questions and comments regarding NCATE's big Blue Ribbon Panel report, both after my remarks at the National Press Club and in response to yesterday's post. Thought it worth taking a couple moments to expand and explain a bit, especially because teacher residencies are one of our current "everybody loves 'em" enthusiasms.

First, let's be clear. I dig the idea of clinical residencies. Something like the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR), or the approach employed in Long Beach, makes all kinds of sense—for those programs, districts, and teachers. I'm all for high-quality clinical residencies when they're done smartly, cost-effectively, and so forth. So, none of my concerns should be taken as pooh-poohing the central idea (though, as I said yesterday, it's not clear to me why colleges or universities ought to necessarily be invited to the clinical residency dance—as most bring little more than hefty cost structures, hard-to-change routines, and faculty of dubious clinical expertise).

But, let's just stipulate that clinical experience is, broadly speaking, a cool idea. At that point, there are four big questions worth asking.

First, even if today's boutique efforts are found to "work," how confident can we be that large-scale imitation will deliver similar benefits? One point that was brought up repeatedly at the report launch yesterday, without any apparent irony, is how important it is that programs like the Boston Teacher Residency are highly selective. That's terrific. But it also poses a huge challenge when one talks of scaling up these programs. To the extent that the secret in such programs is that—unlike most teacher preparation programs—they are careful about who they enroll and graduate, many of the apparent benefits of their expensive programs may be due to nothing more than candidate quality. The problem is that this is hard to sustain if lots of programs are competing for the same pool of folks, and I'm completely unconvinced that the miraculous enthusiasm for clinical residencies would spur the nation's 1,300+ teacher preparation programs to suddenly become much more selective—or to have much more success attracting high-quality candidates.

Far more likely, I think, is the too-familiar routine in which promising boutique programs (which benefit from selection effects, enormous enthusiasm, philanthropic support, and a sharply honed sense of mission) become one more disappointing fad when adopted by a slew of district and university officials eager to sign on for the best practice of the moment but who don't ultimately have any stomach for the wrenching changes needed to do it right. The likely result: an amped-up serving of mediocre student teaching now relabeled "clinical residencies," hampered by too few promising candidates, too few skilled higher education faculty, too few rewarding placements, too little program support, and too few top-shelf classroom mentors.

Second, who exactly does the residency model make sense for? For teachers going into challenging environments where they are going to work intensively with kids who need a high level of "high-touch" adult interaction, then the residency model makes a ton of sense. If the aspiring teachers expect to work in a particular district, school, or school model for a number of years, then the upfront costs can look like a smart investment. For these teachers, I think it's more useful to ask whether staffing models can be reshaped so they take on roles commensurate with their abilities (hello surgical teams, with exquisitely trained surgeons working hand-in-glove with less intensively trained team members). However, if teachers are instructing students who require less intensive teacher engagement or are more likely to bounce across very different school models, then I'm less confident in the payoff.

Third, how can the residency model be pursued without stifling alternative forms of instructional provision? One Blue Ribbon Panel member told me that he didn't really understand my concern about stifling online learning. After all, he said, "We're just talking about partnerships—Florida Virtual could design a training partnership to serve their needs." Well, maybe. Except that, given that the report explicitly celebrates teacher "residencies," flags only models like the Boston Teacher Residency, talks explicitly of "instructional rounds," and so forth, the near-certainty is that higher education and state education agencies which run with the NCATE agenda will do so with BTR as the model. This risks stacking unnecessary costs and burdens on models that don't require all teachers to have that kind of experience. This might include online instruction, programs like Citizen Schools that explore alternatives to the conventional full-time teacher, or models like the high-performing, cost-shaving Rocketship Academies (built around an Oracle-like model of empowering young employees and using technology and specialization to make their roles more manageable). We've a century or more of cautionary history suggesting that well-intentioned policies designed to strengthen teacher preparation by embracing the residency presumption can all too easily stifle creative efforts to boost quality, meet particular needs, or boost cost-effectiveness by using technology or staff in unconventional ways.

Finally, why do residency models seem to envision the deal as a one-size-fits-all proposition? When I eyeball today's teacher residencies, I see a solitary notion of what it means to be a "teacher." I'd have a lot more faith if I were confident that the NCATE panel was pushing for an array of clinical residencies, with an eye to developing less onerous, customized, "just-in-time" preparation for part-time tutors or online instructors. Unfortunately, I see no evidence of such thinking in the NCATE effort.

The intuition here is simple, and can be lifted directly from medicine, where the clinical residency for a cardiovascular surgeon is different from that for a general practitioner. Both are trained rather differently than are RNs or EMTs. And all of these are trained differently than the guy who is going to read X-rays. (Remember, also, that for all the attention paid to medical residencies, doctors account for less than 10 percent of American medical personnel. So the famous, expensive medical residency is really intended for a specialized population and not for every employee who sets foot in a clinic or hospital.) If states and colleges casually wind up embracing notions of a one-size-fits-all residency, it'll be tough sledding to go back and unwind them in a way that facilitates this specialization. After all, this current effort is focused in large part on undoing the legacy of licensure and preparation decisions made more than a half-century ago.

So, again, high-quality residency programs are swell. But, before the eight states that have signed onto the NCATE vision get too far ahead of themselves, and before districts, colleges, or the U.S. Department of Education start jumping on this bandwagon, I sure hope everyone will take a deep breath and make sure they've got a vision to for making sure this well-intentioned effort has a happy ending.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

NCATE's big report "Transforming Teacher Education Through Clinical Practice" is out today, and is likely to get the predictable hosannas. It's scheduled for a morning event at the National Press Club (I'm doing a bit of discussant duty), where the Blue Ribbon Panel's call for "radically" revising teacher prep to focus on practical training and residencies will be hailed as a transformative moment. SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, a co-chair, said, "This is a seismic moment for teacher education." I'm not sold.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've got enormous respect for NCATE honcho Jim Cibulka and for the co-chairs of the Blue Ribbon Panel—Colorado's all-star state chief Dwight Jones (about to become supe of Clark County, Nevada) and Zimpher. But this panel of twenty-some members, including both NEA chief Dennis van Roekel and AFT chief Randi Weingarten, did about what I would've expected—they embraced the conventional wisdom of the moment and called for stuff that's perfectly nice (and that can be termed "radical") but that won't amount to much at the end of the day.

The report declares that teacher education needs to be "turned upside down," with training shifting from a focus on academic preparation and course work and towards clinical practice that's "interwoven with academic content and professional courses." Those are swell sentiments. They sound reasonable to me. And I'm all in favor of teacher preparation finding cost-effective ways to do less mediocre course work and more quality clinical training. My own teacher prep experience at Harvard Ed would've benefited enormously from that kind of shift.

But, the truth is, I didn't see much evidence in this report of seismic thinking. I couldn't find anything in the report acknowledging that, if clinical preparation is the key, it may make sense to increasingly cut colleges or universities out of the preparation equation—and allow sites to deal them in on an as-needed basis. After all, the "normal school" and programs of teacher preparation are 19th century innovations; isn't it possible that a "radical" 21st century rethinking might not want to presuppose that we rely on that machinery?

The panel does usefully note the value of creating new roles when it comes to mentoring and supporting faculty, but it seems to envision the same-old, same-old so far as every teacher being a jack of all trades. So, while the report is a useful, if modest, step forward for thinking more creatively about staffing, it stops far short of seismic. Indeed, the only reference to technology is as a means for supporting teacher preparation; there's not any recognition that the residency model might be poorly suited for those engaging in online instruction, working in hybrid environments, or for supporting and meeting the needs of emerging school models.

I saw nothing acknowledging that teacher preparation for virtual instructors, online tutors, or Citizens Schools-style "citizen-teachers" might require new notions of specializations or efforts to shift away from one-size-fits-all preparation. Instead, I see a call for a new "one best" approach to teacher preparation, one ill-suited for serving educators in new kinds of roles or for supporting more agile, cost-effective staffing models.

Meanwhile, "implementation" challenges—like recruiting enough good classroom mentors, finding sufficiently qualified university supervisors, or handling the logistical issues—go unaddressed. The report doesn't explain how to ensure that large-scale clinical programs aren't merely diluted versions of today's boutique efforts, bringing to mind far too many previous "seismic" edu-reforms that proved to be little more than fads. As someone who spent five years supervising student teachers, I've seen a whole lot of pretty awful practice-oriented teacher preparation. It's not clear to me from this report how preparation programs can be counted on to guard against that or keep their "clinical" training from simply meaning that their students are wasting time in K-12 schools instead of on the college campus.

Finally, illustrating the ways in which the new budget picture still hasn't sunk in, the report ducks like crazy when it comes to "hard choices and cost implications." In the worst tradition of mealy-mouthed reportese, the Panel says its vision "will require reallocation of resources and making hard choices about institutional priorities." The Panel acknowledges that "clinically based programs may cost more per candidate than current programs" but then simply asserts that they "will be more cost-effective by yielding educators who enter the field ready to teach." The evidence for this assertion is, to be generous, lacking. In the current fiscal climate, to call for new outlays without proposing offsetting savings—or even giving some broad estimates of the anticipated costs—shows a troubling tone-deafness to the fiscal situation.

I'm going to be real curious to see how the eight states that signed onto the NCATE proposal—California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee—move forward. And, I hope that this well-intentioned effort proves more transformative than I suspect. But that's not the way I'd bet.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The economic picture remains bleak, but there's growing confidence that—so long as nothing untoward happens with Ireland or Portugal...or Italy...or Greece (again)...and so long as the Middle East doesn't implode—the worst is past. In edu-circles, there are hopeful murmurs that "this will all be behind us" in another year. Such notions echo Secretary Duncan's comment last August, while touting Edujobs, that he was "hopeful" things would be looking up by fall 2011.

Unfortunately, such hopes are likely to be dashed. My colleague Whitney Downs and I explain why in the just-published analysis K-12 Budget Picture: Lean Years Ahead. As John Thomasian, director of the National Governors Association Center, explains, "State budgets have not yet recovered from the Great Recession. In fact, total state revenues probably will not return to pre-recession levels until sometime around 2013." Thirteen states have already drained their "rainy day" reserve accounts, and another 28 used at least some of these funds to balance their budgets in 2009 and 2010. And, while the worst of the recession may be over, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has cautioned, "This is an anemic recovery...and is likely to remain anemic."

If to be forewarned is to be forearmed, it's essential that educators and policymakers set aside their hope chests and steel themselves for the facts. Four trends are likely to keep matters from getting much better anytime soon (sources for the factoids below are available in the larger piece).

First is the drag of property valuations. Nationally, property tax revenues account for about a third of K-12 spending. However, while residential property values peaked in 2006 or 2007, there's typically a three-year lag before valuations are incorporated into state collection systems. This means states and districts are still collecting property taxes based largely on "bubble" valuations. With residential real estate likely to bottom out this year, and commercial real estate predicted to bottom out next year, we're looking at a downward pull through 2014. Communities can try to offset this drag by boosting property tax rates, but that may prove a tough sell in this economic climate and with other taxes expected to start inching up.

Second, underfunded pensions and health care systems mean that strapped states and districts are going to have to come up with additional cash infusions in the coming decade. The Pew Center on the States reports that at the end of FY 2008, there was a $1 trillion gap between the $2.35 trillion states and local governments had set aside for employees' retirement benefits and the $3.35 trillion price tag of those promises. This estimate does not take into account the substantial decline in pension coffers during the past two years. Since 2000, the number of states with fully funded pension systems has dropped from over half to just four. These obligations will create pressures on state and district budgets, and will compete with classrooms for limited dollars.

Third, one of the key pieces of this year's health care reform plan was the decision to add tens of millions of state Medicaid rolls. This will add substantial new obligations and compete for limited funds. By 2013, once those provisions have fully kicked in, for instance, California will be on the hook for $3 billion more a year for Medicaid. One state budget officer explained there is "a prevailing state of 'cognitive fiscal dissonance,' where states are trying to meet Medicaid budget reduction targets while at the same time putting in place new staff and funding to get started on health care reform implementation."

Fourth, stimulus dollars will start running out next year. States used these dollars to plug between 30 and 40 percent of their 2009 and 2010 budget gaps. Stimulus funds propped up K-12 with a direct grant of $77 billion tabbed for 2009 and 2010. As these dollars dry up, it's going to create downward pressure—and no one is expecting the new Congress to approve further rounds of aid.

So, while state and local officials may feel like they've already been dialing back spending—turning down thermostats, delaying book purchases, limiting bus service, and bumping up class sizes a bit—tough years loom into the middle of the next decade. For schools to make strides in that environment will require both smart efforts to squeeze operations and bolder efforts to rethink the use of staff and technology. Readers seeking advice on this score may want to check out Stretching the School Dollar (edited by Eric Osberg and yours truly). The bottom line is that, in the next five years, leaders seeking to make a difference will have to find the dollars they need from existing sources—they can no longer count on fresh infusions of funding to fuel their improvement efforts.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The new Phi Delta Kappan features a five-article special section* on "unbundled schooling" (Full disclosure: I coordinated it). Featuring contributions by Paul Hill, Jim Spillane, Colorado state senator Mike Johnston, Harvard's Jal Mehta and Liz City, and UPenn's Doug Lynch, and a piece on the "declining significance of place" that I penned with Teachers College's Jeff Henig, the articles extend the effort to reimagine schooling that I've urged in The Same Thing Over and Over and Education Unbound.

What is "unbundling"? It's just revisiting assumptions regarding the structure, delivery, and content of schooling with an eye to improving teaching and learning. The contributors explore what unbundling might look like in practice; questions of oversight, professional development, and accountability in an unbundled world; what organizations outside of K-12 have learned; challenges posed by place-based governing arrangements; and potential pitfalls.

The unbundling process is taken for granted in most of life. We think nothing of it when new entrants or even familiar names reinvent the business models that prevail in travel, home building, insurance, or publishing. Today, educators casually peruse Slate or The Huffington Post without even thinking about the disruptions and job losses these have meant for established newspapers. That's just the way life goes. In K-12--because schooling is publicly funded, governed, and managed--that unthinking doesn't occur of its own accord. It must be championed and nurtured. In The Same Thing, I argue that it's ludicrous to view such efforts as "attacks" on schooling. They're merely attempts to rethink how we tap today's tools and talent to address the challenges of 21st century democratic schooling.

All of which lends itself to an amusing irony. I've been honored to contribute regularly to PDK for a decade and was pleased when PDK's talented editor Joan Richardson indicated she wanted to publish the "unbundling" pieces. Indeed, I've always thought PDK's receptivity to my work represented a refreshing, reassuring openness to heterodox views. Thus my surprise when I opened the PDK to see Joan's editor's letter, devoted expressly to denouncing "unbundling" as a threat that would involve "tearing schools, and their neighborhoods, asunder." She writes, "To deconstruct schooling in the belief that we somehow discover a new synergy when the pieces glued back together is nothing more than magical thinking. We don't need more hand-waving over schools. We need audacious and comprehensive approaches."

Joan seemed determined to misconstrue the work she'd published. Does she really think savvy thinkers like Spillane, Hill, Henig, City, et al. are in the habit of "magical thinking?" The contributions are rife with sober discussion of opportunities, risks, challenges, and practical suggestions. Indeed, unbundling is the antithesis of "hand-waving"--it's an attempt to rethink our assumptions about how schooling should be understood and provided. It's hard for me to think of a more "audacious and comprehensive" point of departure than that.

Joan also wrote, "Every time I encounter an idea like unbundling, I'm struck by this thought: This is an idea that some folks think would be great in urban schools, but they'd never accept it in affluent suburban communities." I'm not sure where that came from. Not a single one of the contributors suggests that they're talking about an "urban" solution. The whole point of unbundling is to envision how we can reshape teaching and schooling to better meet the needs of their students, whoever those students happen to be.

I'm frustrated by how often efforts to challenge familiar nostrums are casually dismissed with a litany of reflexive attacks--"this is an attack on schooling," "this is only about urban schools," "this is all part of a privatization conspiracy"-- without regard to substance or specifics. In the end, I'm not sure how to take PDK's seemingly schizophrenic inclination to simultaneously publish and denounce these articles. I wonder if this ever happens to friends like Dick Elmore or Linda Darling-Hammond? I guess I'll need to ask.

*Note: PDK limits access to their full articles to members only.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Yesterday, I talked about a few of the key takeaways from the "making sense of the midterms" event I held here at AEI on Tuesday. I wanted to continue today with a final comment on oversight.

It's now clear that House Republicans are going to launch an aggressive series of oversight and investigative hearings. Majority Leader-to-be Eric Cantor and Rep. Darrell Issa, in line to chair the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, have been talking about the forceful hearings schedule they've got in mind. And Rep. John Kline, expected to chair the House Committee on Education and Labor, has said that the need to step up oversight is one of his primary objectives in the next Congress.

It's pretty likely that this will include hard looks at favored edu-programs like Race to the Top and i3. For those who recall the Democratic hearings on Reading First, it's easy to imagine how some of the luster may be rubbed off these programs. Aggressive oversight, especially if some of the hearings hit home, will produce bruised feelings and make it harder to cooperate on reauthorization. And we'll have to see what the House might do as far as looking at ED's push to craft regulations around "gainful employment" or implement the changes to student lending in the health care bill.

For what it's worth, conversations in the past week have left me thinking that the administration and its key allies never really believed that the Republicans might aggressively pursue hearings into RTT, i3, or related efforts. It doesn't seem like they're steeled for the pushback or girded to answer any concerns.

For instance, here's where ED would've been well-advised to follow Andy Rotherham's advice a few months back to convene a commission to review RTT and i3 for the purpose of identifying problems, missteps, and to offer recommendations. Such an effort could've proved real helpful in anticipating and addressing concerns should the House press forward. Whoops.

Posted by Rick Hess at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

We hosted a pretty boisterous "making sense of the midterms" session yesterday at AEI, featuring former NEA policy chief Joel Packer, Senate uber-staffers Lindsay Hunsicker and Bethany Little, key Rep. Kline staffer Amy Jones, AEI edu-politics guru (and RHSU guest blogger) Andrew Kelly, and yours truly. The affair was chaired by my AEI colleague, and former NCES Commissioner, Mark Schneider. You can watch the whole thing or find a summary here. You can also check out Alyson Klein's usual impeccable coverage here at Ed Week's "Politics K-12" blog.

Two thoughts I'll share here. First, I'm betting that there won't be an ESEA/NCLB reauthorization in the next two years. There, I'm in good company. Whiteboard Advisors monthly survey of "edu-insiders" is out today. It reports that 25% think it likely that there'll be bipartisan cooperation on ESEA/NCLB reauthorization in the new Congress, but 54% think that unlikely and expect reauthorization to take place after 2012.

I do expect, though, that before the 2012 elections the new Congress will pass some kind of "NCLB patch," which suspends the ludicrous consequences of a law that will soon label most of the nation's schools as failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). No need to rehash here the self-defeating problems with this well-intentioned effort to legislate aspirations (for more on that, check out the Education Next article "Crash Course" which I penned with Checker Finn a few years back).

I'm not expecting a "stripped-down" bill but something like the annual "doc fix" we see Congress pass to halt mandated cuts in Medicare payment rates to doctors. Congress is bad at addressing big problems through complex legislation, but it excels at stopgaps that ease the pain. Take the annual "Alternative Minimum Tax patch," which spares millions of taxpayers from getting caught up in the AMT without actually resolving the concerns with this 41-year-old statute. Just this past week, we've seen bipartisan support to push the patch through the lame duck session. Like the "doc fix," the AMT patch is never offset and will result in tens of billions in additional federal borrowing this year. Congress hardly blinks an eye at these costly patches, as it routinely passes them; pushing through a cost-free bill that halts the clumsy labeling of a reviled NCLB should be easy pickings by comparison. I'm betting that a bipartisan measure which renders NCLB toothless--either by making its remedy provisions voluntary or otherwise declawing AYP--will pass sometime in 2012.

Yesterday, my good friends on the Hill thought otherwise. Lindsay Hunsicker, Senator Mike Enzi's education expert, said Senator Enzi strongly opposes anything short of a full-fledged reauthorization. And Bethany Little, Senator Tom Harkin's wickedly sharp edu-honcho, expressed pretty much the same take. Now, I put immense stock in the judgment of these two. But both also have a rooting interest to get an ESEA/NCLB reauthorization done, and to quell talk of "patches" which might make that job harder. So, I'll stand on my prediction and we'll see what happens.

Second, for all the attention paid to the giant GOP gains in the U.S. House and governors mansions, the most noteworthy Republican gains were the prodigious pick-ups in state legislatures. In the legislatures, Republicans gained more than 675 seats--a figure that blew past what either party won in 1974 or 1994. The GOP claimed control of 19 legislative chambers. Republicans won control of the North Carolina legislature for the first time since 1870 (yep, 140 years) and of Alabama's for the first time since 1876. The Wisconsin and New Hampshire legislatures flipped to the GOP, as did the state houses in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, and Colorado.

For schooling, the import of these shifts is huge--especially when one considers how many new legislators, Tea Partiers or no, ran on a message of cutting spending and holding the line on taxes. Educators who may have been hoping that D.C. or state legislatures would step up with new funds are likely to be disappointed. With stimulus dollars starting to run dry and many states having asterisked in hoped-for federal dollars when crafting their FY2011 budgets, it's going to be a bumpy ride. These state-level shifts--especially in key states like Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee--also present potential headaches for the Obama Administration when it comes to Race to the Top and the Common Core.

In many states, the full educational impact of last Tuesday won't be clear for a couple years, until the new governors have named a majority of appointees to the boards of education. This may make Tuesday's results something of a time bomb for the Common Core in some states, with a delayed fuse that won't ignite until 2013 or so. At that point, if a few states start to reverse course, we'll see whether the Common Core effort has got enough momentum to roll on or whether other frogs start jumping out of the wheelbarrow.

Posted by Rick Hess at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of hosting NAACP president Ben Jealous at AEI (you can watch the video or read a summary here). Ben, whip-smart and charming, is the youngest president in the NAACP's illustrious history and is tasked with trying to lead an unwieldy board and generations-old outfit into the 21st century.

It's a tough job, especially when it comes to education. On the one hand, he's got aggravated parents eager for choices and frustrated with mediocre teaching. On the other hand, a key NAACP constituency is veteran educators and municipal employees who are bitterly opposed to reforming tenure, pay, or evaluation and who regard their teaching jobs as a doorway to the middle-class.

Consider how long it's been since the NAACP drew attention in schooling for something other than protesting the treatment of black students or some proposed reform. Unlike the Education Trust or the National Council of La Raza, the NAACP is typically seen as a bastion of the status quo—as when it sued to stop 19 school closures in New York City and blasted the Obama administration's prized Race to the Top fund.

A promising starting place for the NAACP's venture into education reform is Ben's effort to extend an open hand, especially as the NAACP prepares to release its new education strategy this winter. While most folks in D.C. are pursuing common ground with a lot of talk and little action, Ben reversed the formula. He took several hours to come over to AEI and talk about where the NAACP is at. We disagree on important questions, and he knew that—but he came and spent the time. And I think several folks in attendance found places from which to build. That's healthy and productive.

Two big takeaways. First, with varying degrees of specificity and sincerity, he voiced openness to teacher tenure reform, charter schooling, merit pay, and so forth. The NAACP has been largely missing in action on these issues in recent decades, so it was intriguing and potentially promising to hear Ben signal this openness. It's not clear how far or how aggressively he's willing to go, but it at least opens the door.

Second, and less promisingly, Ben kept coming back to the need for more money and, especially, the vast sums available if we dial back prison spending. He repeatedly pointed out that the U.S. has remarkably high rates of incarceration, implied that our educational woes are primarily due to insufficient spending, and seemed to suggest that we can score the dollars we need by cutting spending on corrections. This take struck me as tone-deaf given the fiscal climate and disappointing results of much school spending.

It also seemed to ignore the fact that, relatively speaking, we just don't spend that much on corrections. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), total national expenditures on corrections (including prisons, guards, juvenile detention centers, parole, and so forth) were estimated to be $68 billion in 2006, the last year for which the BJS reports data. That same year, national K-12 spending topped $500 billion. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reported last March that 26% of state spending is devoted to K-12 while just 5% is spent on corrections—and pointed out that state K-12 spending only accounts for about half of state-local K-12 outlays. As the CBPP notes, "While [corrections] costs have grown significantly over the years, overall they remain a relatively small share of state spending."

In short, for all the energetic rhetoric, there's just not that much money in corrections. We could slash corrections spending by half and put all those dollars into K-12 and it just wouldn't much matter. It'd amount to, perhaps, a 5% bump in school spending. Schools have routinely enjoyed increases of that size year after year, with no evidence that it's made a lick of difference. High rates of incarceration make a nice talking point, but the issue is little more than a distraction when it comes to school improvement.

Posted by Rick Hess at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

So the 2010 election is in the books. There were historic Republican gains in the state legislatures, governorships, and the House. The GOP picked up more than 675 seats in state legislatures and won control of 19 legislative chambers. Tuesday saw more modest gains in the Senate, where Republicans paid a price for nominating Palin-backed mediocrities like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. Top to bottom, a huge setback for the Democrats—bigger than 1994 or the post-Watergate results of 1974.

And now we're being treated to the mandatory post-election prattle about finding common ground—with our earnest Secretary of Education and any number of edu-shills suggesting that education will be high on that agenda. I find myself wondering whether these folks paid attention to the campaign or President Obama's post-election press conference.

First, let's recall that the 80+ new House Republicans didn't come to D.C. to strengthen educational accountability or promote charter schooling—their campaigns weren't fueled by policy wonkdom, but by the simpler, bedrock conviction that Washington is doing and spending too much. Policy wonks can praise the administration's ESEA blueprint until they're blue in the face, but I'm not sure that'll much impress the new Republicans.

The most interesting development in the last week, though, was Obama's day-after press conference. He seemed determined to live up to a caricature of himself as supercilious and tone-deaf—and to throw cold water on serious hopes of finding common ground.

Early on, Obama told reporter Savannah Guthrie, "I think that what I think is absolutely true is voters are not satisfied with the outcomes. If right now we had 5 percent unemployment instead of 9.6 percent unemployment, then people would have more confidence in those policy choices. The fact is, is that for most folks, proof of whether they work or not is has the economy gotten back to where it needs to be." I love this. Obama's view seems to be that people don't care about policies or can't judge them. Apparently, he thinks they'll embrace just about anything if unemployment is low (a line that other Democratic leaders echoed over the weekend), but become irrational when it tops 9 percent. It's not often that one hears a President straightforwardly explain his view that Americans are ignorant sheep.

The President's stance doesn't offer much common ground for bipartisan negotiations, because it suggests that the President—in his heart of hearts—doesn't really believe that last Tuesday's results represent anything more than incoherent frustration. Obama's rationale also doesn't make clear why the President thought his 2008 victory represented a mandate—and not simply economic frustration.

I also liked the way Obama depicted himself as the big-brained arbiter who would let the Republicans know if they stumbled upon any good ideas in the next two years. The President explained, "My job is to make sure that I'm looking at all ideas that are on the table. When it comes to job creation, if Republicans have good ideas for job growth that can drive down the unemployment rate, and we haven't thought of them, we haven't looked at them but we think they have a chance of working, we want to try some."

Of course, the President has also made it abundantly clear that he views conservative arguments that federal leadership may do more harm than good as nothing more than politically-inspired demagoguery, which means the only legitimate ideas Republicans can put forward are those that comport with Obama's agenda and notion of "progress." As the President explained, "I think that over the last two years, we have made a series of very tough decisions, but decisions that were right... [and Americans don't want us to] relitigate arguments that we had over the last two years."

So, where is there common ground? Obama said that both parties could agree on "making sure that our children are the best educated in the world," asserted that we cannot expect to find answers to our challenges "in any one particular philosophy or ideology," and that "no person, no party, has a monopoly on wisdom." Yet, this was the same leader who disparaged Republicans on the campaign trail as irresponsible, who asserted that none of their ideas on health care were serious, and whose administration has dismissed criticisms of the stimulus as simple-minded and uninformed.

Asked about spending and Republican pledges to reduce federal outlays, Obama said, "I want to make sure that we're not cutting into education that is going to help define whether or not we can compete around the world. I don't think we should be cutting back on research and development." Reporter Chip Reid observed, "But most of those things that you just called investments they call wasteful spending and they say it's dead on arrival." Obama's response: "Well, what is absolutely true is, is that without any Republican support on anything, then it's going to be hard to get things done. But I'm not going to anticipate that they're not going to support anything." As best I can tell, the President's take is that the voters didn't really mean it on Tuesday, that the Republicans don't mean what they say, and, anyway, he's already collected and sorted through the good ideas. So compromise is really just Republicans learning to be responsible grown-ups. Or, as the President said in explaining why he doesn't think Republican criticisms of health care reform are serious: it's time to shift "from campaigning [to] governing" so "that we can continue to make some progress."

Honestly, given this kind of leadership, it's easy to see how we've wound up with a Department of Education that regards any criticism of its pet programs as uniformed and evidence of hostility. When Obama explains that he's already considered all the "good" ideas and acted as any sensible person would, it's easy to see how ED's architects of Race to the Top, i3, "gainful employment," and the rest may imagine that any criticism of program design or execution reveal only ignorance or willful malice.

Posted by Rick Hess at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Andrew Kelly, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, is guest-posting this week. He can be reached at andrew.kelly@aei.org.

In the wake of Tuesday's "shellacking," the President and Secretary Duncan have already promised that bipartisanship will be the name of the game in the coming session of Congress. Both identified education policy is a key area in which both parties can find common ground. Secretary Duncan told Kendra Marr of Politico that a bipartisan education agenda was not only possible, but could even help bridge the gulf between liberals and conservatives in Congress:

"Am I hopeful? Absolutely," he told POLITICO. "Am I optimistic? Yes. Do I think it's the right thing to do for children, for the country? Absolutely..."

"If we can do that work together through education, it actually might help to lessen some of those tensions in other areas as well," said Duncan, who has put No Child Left Behind reform a top priority early next year. "Maybe our work together can help soothe some of those hurt feelings."

Over at the Washington Post, Nick Anderson's article is guardedly optimistic, suggesting that education is "ripe for deal-making."

Secretary Duncan is right to argue that education policy has been an issue on which Republicans and Democrats have often found common ground. And observers are correct in pointing out that President Obama has curried favor with Republicans because of his stances on merit pay, teacher dismissal, and charter schools.

But the election results have likely made it more difficult to secure such bipartisan agreement, and not only because fiscally conservative Republicans have taken over the House. Moderate members of Congress who once occupied the middle ground between the parties--the prime candidates for a bipartisan coalition--were devastated by this week's election. Many of these members also happen to be the Democrats who are most sympathetic to the President's edgier education reform priorities. The President is left with a more liberal and homogeneous Democratic caucus in the House and will likely confront a more ideologically polarized chamber in January. Both will make bipartisanship more difficult to come by.

I've taken a look at how the House Democrats who lost their reelection bids compare to the rest of the Democratic caucus as a whole using two measures: voting scores published by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a liberal interest group, and the partisan voting index (PVI), a measure of how much a given congressional district tilts toward one party or the other in presidential elections.

On the day before the election, Cook Political Report rated 100 Democratic seats as "at-risk" (either "lean Democratic," "toss-up," lean Republican," or "likely Republican"). The members in these 100 seats had an average ADA score of 82, compared to an average ADA score of about 90 for the entire Democratic caucus. These Democratic seats had an average PVI of R+2.7, meaning that they represented districts that favored the Republican Party in presidential elections, while Democratic districts as a whole had a PVI of D+8.6.

Of these 100, 65 have either lost or appear likely to lose. These 65 Democrats have an average ADA score of 78, and an average PVI of R+4.8. Twenty-eight of the 54 "Blue Dog" Democrats went down in this election, and 4 more are still locked in a tight race.

Once we eliminate these losing Democrats from the existing Democratic caucus, the resulting group of Democrats has an average ADA score of 94 and an average PVI of D+13.2. These elections have produced a Democratic caucus that is more liberal, more homogeneous, and represents more liberal districts. In short, a big chunk of the middle ground in the House has disappeared.

At its most basic level, bipartisanship requires members of the two parties to agree on something. This criterion is much easier to fulfill when there is a swath of moderate members of either party that occupy common ground. Moderate lawmakers are simply more likely to agree with a member of the opposing party on a policy question than is an ideologue at the end of the ideological spectrum. Bipartisanship is not impossible, but is more difficult to come by in a chamber that is polarized and contains few moderates.

As an issue, education has sometimes transcended these rules of thumb and garnered support from liberals and conservatives alike. But like most contemporary policy debates, federal education policy has lately been dragged into broader disputes about the appropriate role of government, free markets vs. government interference, and wasteful spending.

Moreover, though observers argue that many key Republicans are sympathetic to President Obama's reform-minded goals, they neglect the fact that more liberal Democrats have been reticent to fully embrace the President's stance on teacher incentives and charter schools. Remember, these same liberal House Democrats were willing to "[pull] the rug out from under" Race to the Top and the Teacher Incentive Fund to pay for the Edu-jobs, a move that prompted a veto threat from the President. Finally, Republicans have voiced concern that the President's support of moderate education reforms may come with strings attached to the Common Core.

In short, serious questions remain about whether there is a policy package that will line up with the President's preferences, those of his co-partisans, and those of Republicans. As Rick and I remarked back in October, this will require the administration to "thread quite the needle." Secretary Duncan seems dedicated to a spirit of bipartisanship, but we will have to see whether these good intentions alone can lead to compromise and a winning coalition.

--Andrew Kelly

Posted by Andrew Kelly at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Andrew Kelly, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, is guest-posting this week. He can be reached at andrew.kelly@aei.org.

Now that the election results have had a few more hours to percolate, I thought I'd offer some quick reactions (look for a more systematic run-down tomorrow in the AM).

1. Kasich and Scott win, Duncan Shudders

Yesterday, I argued that the governor's races in Florida and Ohio could be key to the eventual verdict on Race to the Top. Things got increasingly interesting on this front last night and into this morning, as John Kasich bested Ted Strickland in Ohio yesterday night and Alex Sink conceded to Rick Scott in Florida this morning. Kasich has publicly signaled that he will not maintain Strickland's program of reforms, which the outgoing governor claims helped Ohio win RTT money in the first place. Couple Kasich's win with a newly-unified Republican state legislature in Ohio, and you've got a recipe for new directions in education policy.

Rick Scott ticked off the Florida teachers' unions even before he was elected, suggesting that the "union buy-in"--purchased by Charlie Crist's veto and crucial to the state's winning application--may go up in flames.

All eyes will be on Secretary Duncan and how he might respond to policy drift in Ohio and Florida.

2. Bennet and Murkowski (Seem to) Survive

In two of the more surprising results, Sens. Michael Bennet and Lisa Murkowski appear to have beaten the odds. The Denver Post officially called Bennet the victor in his race against Ken Buck, and in Alaska the "write-in candidates" are ahead of Republican challenger Joe Miller by 7 points or so. Of course, Murkowski could still lose if a good portion of those write-in votes are not hers.

Bennet's win installs Obama and Duncan's ed policy ally on the HELP committee for another six years, one of the lone bright spots for the administration's policy agenda.

3. Oklahoma Voters Smack Down Equalized Funding, Promote Charter Operator to Schools Chief

In Oklahoma, voters roundly rejected a proposition that would have required the state to maintain per-pupil funding levels that are comparable to the five neighboring states. The rejection was overwhelming: 81% of voters went against the proposition while 19% supported it.

In a victory for charter school advocates, these same voters elected Republican Janet Barresi, founder of two successful charter schools, to be Oklahoma's Superintendent of Instruction. Barresi has promised to expand parental choice, including homeschooling. (Thanks to Vance Fried, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State's Spears School of Business, for keeping me posted on Oklahoma's results.)

4. Florida Rejects Class Size Increase (But Not By Much)

The Florida proposition that would relax class size restrictions failed to pass, as expected. However, it's important to note that while the proposition failed to garner the 60% of the vote necessary to amend the state constitution, it was still supported by about 55% of voters. A majority of Florida voters saw the merit of relaxing costly and cumbersome class-size requirements, which could provide political cover for governor-elect Scott and the Florida legislature to revisit this question in the coming session.

5. Kline Announces "Investigations" and "Local Control" As Priorities

As Politics K-12 noted earlier today, soon-to-be chair of the House education and labor committee John Kline wasted no time in announcing his priorities for the coming session. Problem is, his statement was a little light on the details, promising only that his committee would investigate education and workforce training programs across the federal agencies and would promote education policies that increase local control and empower parents.

--Andrew Kelly

Update: A few proud Ohioans have responded to my post to argue that Strickland's education initiatives had little to do with Ohio's RTT win, and that Ohio won in spite of Strickland's policies, not because of them. Their point is well-taken. I was mainly referring to the arguments Strickland made during the campaign and to his personal involvement in the RTT application process, but I appreciate the additional context.

The question still remains, though, as to how the political turnover in Ohio will affect the implementation of RTT.

Posted by Andrew Kelly at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Andrew Kelly, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, is guest-posting this week. He can be reached at andrew.kelly@aei.org.

In the wake of yesterday's remarkable Republican surge, it's hard to resist making the analogy to 1994. The Democrats' situation is not nearly as dire today as it was in 1994, as they will maintain a small majority in the Senate. But there are important parallels: an energized group of challengers swept into office by an enthusiastic and dissatisfied Republican electorate, a new Republican majority with small government on its mind and social programs in its crosshairs, and a significant rightward shift in the states.

In the weeks after Election Day 1994--so heady for Republicans and so foreboding for Democrats--the big questions for ed policy observers were not whether the Gingrich Republicans would cut education funding or try to abolish the DOE, but how severe those cuts would be and whether the onslaught against ED could garner enough votes.

Should yesterday's results raise similar questions? Like 1994, the electorate has signaled its dissatisfaction with the Democratic agenda in no uncertain terms. And soon-to-be freshmen Tea Partiers have been sharpening their budget-slashing knives and anti-government rhetoric for months now.

Before ed policy observers let their imaginations (or worst fears) run wild, it's worth firing up the old time machine and taking a ride back to November 1994. What did the writers at Education Week think the Republican Revolution would bring? How much of the hand-wringing about education cuts and a reduced federal role proved to be much ado about nothing? Perhaps that will help us to predict what comes next this time around.

Two weeks after the '94 midterms, Ed Week writer Mark Pitsch wrote (emphasis is mine):

"The historic realignment will radically alter the prospects for education legislation and may curtail the federal role in setting education policy, which has taken on new importance under the Clinton Administration.

Indeed, Rep. Bill Goodling, R-Pa., who is in line to become the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said last week that he will embark on a comprehensive analysis of the federal role and federal programs. "There will be a major rethinking of what our role should be, but I think the first thing we should do is find out where we are and what we have done," said Mr. Goodling, a 20-year veteran of the House who has been the ranking Republican on the education panel since 1989.

"There certainly will be less involvement from the federal government" under a Republican-controlled Congress, said Sen. James M. Jeffords, R-Vt., who will likely chair the Senate Subcommittee on Education, Arts, and Humanities."

A week later, this gloomy pronouncement:

"Education and child-welfare advocates are bracing for an assault on entitlement, student-loan, and crime-prevention programs targeted for billions of dollars in cuts under the "Contract With America," the election pact signed by more than 300 g.o.p. House candidates and incumbents. Republicans leaders say the contract's 10 sweeping proposals will be introduced as legislation on the opening day of Congress. . . .

Education advocates maintain, however, that it would be foolhardy to underestimate the threat the Republicans' contract may pose to education programs."

Finally, at the state level, advocates for choice were triumphant:

"The overwhelming Republican victories in last week's elections have laid the groundwork for a big shift in state education policy, political observers said...
Educators and others will feel the transformation quickly come January, according to Jeanne Allen, the president of the Washington-based Center for Education Reform.

"It is going to be a banner year for choice and charter schools, and a bad year for school-based management, school-finance reform, and other things that clearly have not helped to solve our problems," Ms. Allen predicted."

What actually happened? Most of these predictions never came to pass. Indeed, efforts to abolish the Department of Education failed, and federal education spending actually grew--and grew a lot--under the new Republican majority. All totaled, between the 1994 capture of the House and the Republican loss in 2006, total appropriations for the Department of Education almost tripled (in nominal dollars), and spending on elementary and secondary education grew by 2.5 times. Total discretionary spending shrank briefly after the '94 election, but it started to grow again after 1996 and ultimately more than doubled between '94 and '06.

What's more, the '94 elections actually sowed the seeds that eventually produced NCLB, one the most massive expansions of the federal role in education since the Great Society. George W. Bush won the governorship in Texas and went on to develop the "Texas-style accountability" at the core of the 2001 law. And the Republican majority that came to power in '94 slowly moved away from a focus on reducing the federal role (and abolishing ED) and came to overwhelmingly support NCLB, working with Democrats to ferry it through Congress in 2001.

This year's Republican surge could very well be different--the Tea Party candidates seem credible enough in their commitment to cut government spending and reduce the federal role in education. But the 1994 Republicans didn't lack in the verve department, either. Granted, in 1994 the new chairs of the education committees (Goodling and Jeffords) were established Republican moderates with less appetite for the fire-breathing fiscal discipline of their insurgent peers (Jeffords was so moderate he eventually defected to the Democrats). In contrast, Rep. John Kline, who will become chair of the House Committee on Education and Labor, has already signaled a desire to increase local control and flexibility and curb federal funding. But he has also highlighted some areas on which he has common ground with Secretary Duncan--things like merit pay and charter schools. Moreover, any bills passed by the House will still have to pass muster with a Democratic Senate, let alone obtain the President's signature.

Thanks to their newly minted House majority, Republicans will leave their imprint on any upcoming rounds of education policymaking in Congress. But if history is a guide, this second Republican Revolution will be hard-pressed to fundamentally reduce the federal footprint in K-12 education.

--Andrew Kelly

Correction: These figures were incorrectly labeled as being in 2009 dollars in an earlier version of this post. They are based on nominal dollars.

Posted by Andrew Kelly at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Andrew Kelly, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, is guest-posting this week. He can be reached at andrew.kelly@aei.org.

Today's the day, folks. Yesterday we talked House and Senate. As of 5:00 pm Monday night, Buck was up 3 points on Bennet in Colorado. In Alaska, Murkowski, Miller, and Democrat Scott McAdams were locked in a close three-way race that became even more volatile over the weekend.

Today I'll take a look at some state-level races with an eye toward federal policy and school finance.

1. Promises, Promises: Gubernatorial Turnover and RTT/Common Core

The big story coming out of election week could be the number of governorships that change hands. This raises the question: will the states that won Race to the Top continue to implement their reform plans as promised under new governors?

RHSU has been unabashed in knocking RTT for rewarding "airy promises" rather than actual accomplishments. Electoral uncertainty exposes the problems with the RTT approach to education reform even further. Whether new governors maintain their predecessor's commitment to the promised slate of RTT reforms is a huge question mark.

Of the 12 Race to the Top winners, seven will elect a new executive today because of retirements, term limits, or a run for higher office (these are D.C., Hawaii, Florida, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, and Rhode Island). Three more incumbent governors are locked in relatively close elections (Ohio, Maryland, and Massachusetts). According to yesterday's New York Times, the governor's races in Florida, Ohio, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia are "toss-ups," and Hawaii and Tennessee will almost certainly switch parties (Hawaii goes from Republican to Democrat, Tennessee goes Democrat to Republican). For those of you scoring at home, this means that anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of RTT winners will have a new face in the governor's mansion, and somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of the 12 chief executives could switch parties.

The story for the Common Core is similar. Of the 38 states (and D.C.) that have signed on, 29 have a gubernatorial election tomorrow. Of those, six states look likely to switch from Democratic to Republican (Wyoming, Iowa, Tennessee, New Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma) and three more will probably switch from Democratic to Republican. It's possible that anywhere between 7 to 10 Democratic governors in states that have signed on to the standards could be replaced by Republicans.

I'm not arguing that new governors will automatically reject their predecessor's RTT promises and/or the Common Core. But this uncertainty serves as a reminder of how difficult it is for policymakers to insulate their accomplishments from the prerogatives of future leaders. New administrations, particularly those from a different party, are usually elected on a promise to change course from the guys who preceded them. This is especially true in 2010, and the tension between past commitments and present conditions is particularly acute for Race to the Top because of its emphasis on what states promise to do. Surely, changes to state charter and data systems laws are difficult to undo after the fact. And state boards of education, some of which have staggered terms and partisan balance requirements, will protect commitments to the Common Core. But other policy promises, and their implementation, are much more difficult to insulate.

What will Secretary Duncan do if a new crop of state executives fail to hold up their end of the bargain?

2. Up Close: Florida and Ohio

Few states exemplify this dynamic more clearly than Ohio and Florida, where the governor's races are still very much a toss-up. In the current political climate, Republican candidates who have run against big government and federal overreach--like John Kasich in Ohio or Rick Scott in Florida--are unlikely to cozy up to the Obama administration's top education priorities after an electoral victory.

Take Florida: when the state won RTT money, sitting Governor Charlie Crist (an independent) credited the support from the teachers unions for the victory (he also vetoed a teacher tenure law that was opposed by the unions). In contrast, Rick Scott has made it clear that he would like to do away with tenure for new teachers, implement merit pay, and raise Florida's class-size requirements. For its part, the Florida union has already warned that Scott's plan to expand the state's voucher program would run into constitutional issues and would prompt a lawsuit from the organization. Will the sunny consensus that surrounded Florida's RTT application survive a Scott victory? If not, where does this leave Florida's promised plan of reform? Scott and Democrat Alex Sink (who is endorsed by the state union) are currently in a dead heat.

In Ohio, John Kasich has already signaled a desire to roll back Ted Strickland's slate of "evidence-based" funding reforms. Strickland has countered that a rejection of the reforms would "[endanger] $400 million in Race-to-the-Top funds," a decision that is "irresponsible, reckless, and extreme." Suffice it to say that there is a lot of daylight between Strickland and Kasich on education reform. The choice for Ohio voters has serious implications for both the state's existing reform efforts and for the implementation of RTT. Kasich currently has a small lead (+3) in the polls, but it's clearly anybody's ball game.

A new sheriff in town would almost certainly have an impact on the implementation of RTT plans (and education reform more generally) in Ohio and Florida.

3. Voter Turnout And Education Funding

How do you compel state governments to make politically difficult choices to rein in education funding and increase class size?

A few states will experiment with one method tomorrow: take funding decisions out of the hands of risk-averse state legislators and put 'em on the ballot, particularly in a year that is likely to feature a surge of energetic conservative turnout. Colorado's "Amendment 60" would slash the amount of property taxes that residents must pay into the public schools, while Arizona's Prop. 302 would redirect early childhood monies to the state's general fund. Florida is seeking to relax its class-size amendment, a move favored by Republican Rick Scott. (For excellent coverage of these ballot initiatives (and others), see Alyson Klein's story in Ed Week.)

These initiatives all face long odds at the polls, but voter turnout rates could make for a few surprises. If an enthusiastic wave of conservative, anti-tax voters are mobilized by candidates like Buck in Colorado and Scott in Florida, there is a chance that these propositions could surpass expectations. The teachers unions will certainly have something to say about that in both locales, and an impressive movement has evolved in opposition to Amendment 60 in Colorado (opponents, including Democrats and Republicans, have spent $6.8 million in the fight to defeat three tax-cutting amendments). Indeed, early polling suggests that the probability of a victory for the anti-tax group that is pushing Amendment 60 is small, and that the class size proposition has been a tough sell in Florida.

But if liberal Democrats are not mobilized as effectively as conservative Republican voters, these initiatives may have legs. Research on likely turnout suggests that the Republicans will have a clear (and perhaps unprecedented) advantage in voter turnout this year (see here and here). Moreover, these measures could serve as a barometer for the public's appetite for education spending; even if they don't pass, if they garner more support than expected at the polls, it could affect the latitude that state legislatures and governors have to pursue costly new initiatives.

Now that you've got a few things to keep an eye on while the early returns come in, go enjoy Election Day!

—Andrew Kelly

Posted by Andrew Kelly at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: Andrew Kelly, a research fellow in education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, is guest-posting this week. He can be reached at andrew.kelly@aei.org.

Greetings RHSU readers, and thanks for tuning in! I'm thrilled that Rick invited me to guest blog this week. While I can't hope to fill his flip flops, I'll try to add some insights about what the next few days might mean for education policy.

The management informs me that there's an election tomorrow, so there's little time for exposition or pleasantries. But before I begin, a few tid-bits about myself: I'm a Ph.D. candidate in American politics, RealClearPolitics is first on my list of Firefox bookmarks (yes, ahead of RHSU), and I can spell Murkowski and Giannoulias without resorting to Google.

Rick and I have already waxed a bit about what these midterm elections might mean for education policy. Our big takeaway: contrary to some of the conventional wisdom, President Obama's moderate education reform agenda will not benefit from expected Republican victories. First, many of the Democrats that are fighting for their political lives are of the moderate, Blue Dog variety who represent Republican-leaning districts--precisely the ones that are predisposed to support some of the administration's favorite reforms like charter schooling and merit pay. Second, the Republicans expected to take their places are more likely to favor less federal spending and expansion, dampening the chances of ESEA reauthorization or an extension of Race to the Top.

Now that election week has arrived, it's time to hone in on a few races and trends that have implications for big-ticket items on the education agenda. This morning I'll discuss the House and the Senate. Look for ruminations on the state-level races later today and early tomorrow morning.

1. Bennet and Murkowski: "Reports of our political demise are greatly exaggerated."

If the House goes Republican and the Senate remains (narrowly) Democratic, the upper chamber will become a focal point of the administration's efforts to craft education policy. But in an increasingly polarized Senate, who will do the bridge-building necessary to get things done on education?

About a month ago, Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), two members of the Senate HELP committee, had been just about written off. Bennet, the former Denver schools superintendent, trailed his opponent Ken Buck (a county district attorney and dyed-in-the-wool Tea Partier) by about 7 points in the polls, and Buck appeared to have hit his stride, routinely polling at around 50 percent to Bennet's low-to-mid 40s. However, as of last week, Bennet had pulled to within 1 point of Buck.

Murkowski's political career was on life support long before early October, having lost in the Republican primary to Tea Partier/Palin-ite (and journalist hand-cuffer) Joe Miller. After deciding to mount a write-in campaign, however, Murkowski has stormed back to pull almost even with Miller in statewide polling. The New York Times reminds us that the odds of a write-in victory are long--last accomplished in 1954 when write-in Strom Thurmond won a South Carolina Senate seat--but stranger things have happened.

Which side wins these two races could have serious implications for education policy in the coming session. In particular, the HELP subcommittee on which Bennet and Murkowski currently serve (Children and Families) will play a central role in the reauthorization of ESEA. With the House likely to go Republican, the Senate will be the main staging ground for the administration's efforts to shape the next installment of the law.

EdWeek's Alison Klein rightfully points out that Bennet is one of the administration's "go-to lawmakers" on education. Indeed, way back in 2008 there were whispers that Obama would name then-Superintendent Bennet to be Secretary of Education. But Bennet is important not only because he is a voice for the administration, but because his centrist credentials position him as a key coalition builder between his more polarized colleagues. During his tenure in Denver and in the Senate, he cultivated a reputation as a pragmatic moderate on education (RiShawn Biddle labels him "wishy washy"). Bennet further burnished his centrist credentials when he broke with more liberal Democrats to oppose an early version of the edu-jobs bill that would loot RTT and the Teacher Incentive Fund. "Pragmatic" and "moderate" are two descriptors that have become increasingly rare in the Senate, but will be critical to negotiating an ESEA reauthorization. Combine Bennet's moderate policy positions with his committee post and ties to the administration, and you end up with a potentially pivotal decision-maker in congressional education debates.

Likewise, Murkowski has been one of the more moderate Republicans in the chamber, which is what got her into primary trouble in the first place. Her center-right position and committee post could present an opportunity to serve as a deal-maker, both within the committee itself and between a Republican House and a narrowly Democratic Senate. Republican gains would also position Murkowski as a pivotal voter for Democrats looking to obtain sixty votes on education legislation, giving her even more leverage in shaping federal ed. policy.

If both Murkowski and Bennet lose, the Senate's main education policymaking arm would be short two potential bridge-builders, and Secretary Duncan would be without one of his most important allies in Congress.

2. Channeling Bob Dole: Abolishing ED Is Cool Again

Here's a fun tally to keep tomorrow: how many Republican challengers that wind up winning have expressed support for abolishing the Department of Education? Add that to the sitting House Republicans who voted for such amendments in the late 1990s and you'll have a sense of how rocky the road may be for education legislation in the coming session.

The liberal blog ThinkProgress pegs the number of Republican candidates in the "Eliminate DOE" camp at 27. I count at least one addition: Martha Roby in the Alabama 2nd, who recently joined these ranks. Let's say there are 28 of them.

A bunch of these candidates are either likely to win or have a decent chance of doing so. Seven out of the 28 are in races judged to be "toss-ups" by RealClearPolitics, and another seven are classified as "lean/likely Republican." In other words, anywhere between 25 and 50% of the challengers in this camp have a pretty good shot at a victory. ThinkProgress adds an additional 63 Republican incumbents to these ranks on the basis of prior roll call votes. Suddenly we've got about 1/3 of any Republican caucus.

The point is not that ED employees should start looking for a new job if the Republicans win back the House. But this anti-government rhetoric suggests that any effort to ferry significant education legislation through a Republican-led House will be in for a rough go of it. The 2011-2012 Republicans promise to be tough negotiating partners on any proposed expansion of federal spending, and adding these steadfast anti-ED voices will only strengthen their resolve.

So you can score at home, here are challengers who have expressed support (either explicitly during this campaign or gleaned from previous comments or votes) for eliminating ED:

Toss-ups in the "Eliminate ED" camp: Roby (AL-2), Kelly (AZ-8), Heck (NV-03), Gibson (NY-20), Walberg (MI-7), Johnson (OH-6), Fimian (VA-11).

Lean/likely Republican: Harmer (CA-11), Scott (GA-8), Harris (MD-1), West (FL-22), Guinta (NH-1), Chabot (OH-1), Hurt (VA-5).

3. Add Blue Dogs to the Endangered Species List?

When it comes to handicapping the prospects for education policy in the next session, who may win is as important as who may lose. The House Democratic caucus looks like it will lose quite a few of the fiscally conservative members known as "Blue Dogs."

These Blue Dogs are a key element of the caucus and of any bipartisan work on education. There are currently 54 members of the House Blue Dog caucus (see a list here); of these seats, 36 are rated as either "toss-ups" or "lean/likely Republican." The ranks of this important group will be thinned considerably in tomorrow's election. As a result, expect the Democratic caucus in the House to become more homogeneously liberal and potentially less friendly to some elements of the Obama reform agenda.

--Andrew Kelly

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