Is The Education Trust Too Influential, And Are Its NCLB Ideas Worth Considering?
The Fordham Foundation's Mike Petrilli doesn't seem exactly sure what to say about the Ed Trust's recent NCLB recommendations (here), which include a provision that would give some states with stronger achievement a little more time past 2014 to get to 100 percent. He praises the Trust -- cautiously -- for finally seeing the light (as he so recently did that I still can't quite forget it). But he's worried about several other recommendations, and also about the Trust's inordinate influence over the process, which pushes other education groups right and left out of the way. What Petrilli's analysis leaves out is that the Trust is effective because it does what few others do: it rolls up its sleeves and works on the law , while everyone else sits back and writes commentaries from afar. If Fordham (or anyone else) wants to have the kind of influence the Trust has -- which I'm not actually sure it does -- it will have to do the same. It will have to work for it.
