As first reported by Politics K-12 yesterday, Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond has decided to return to Palo Alto rather than seek a top position in the Obama Administration. (Seyward Darby of The New Republic provides some back story here.)

Flypaper readers know that I’m not a fan of Darling-Hammond’s views on education, but that’s besides the point now. A note circulating around Washington yesterday indicated that her decision was in large part related to a major health challenge that a close family member of hers is facing. She will be in our thoughts and prayers.

As for my prediction that she was going to be nominated to be Deputy Secretary of Education, well, as I’ve said before, maybe I should stick to commentary and analysis and leave the reporting to reporters. At least, for as long as there are still reporters left.

OK, I’m jumping the gun a bit, but I’m hearing a lot of chatter that indicates that Linda Darling-Hammond is almost certainly getting the Department of Education’s #2 job. I suspect the news will come next week. The Reform-o-Meter will be waiting.

Earlier we looked into Arne Duncan’s eyes and got a sense of his soul. But what about his team? Who is likely to get jobs in the new administration? This Week in Education’s Alexander Russo pondered that question yesterday. (Alexander’s not so great at lots of things, like accuracy, or thoughtfulness, but he does know how to dish gossip.)

Let me fill in a couple of holes in Alexander’s analysis with a bunch of unreliable, secondhand information. First, let’s start at the top (or at least near the top). I’ve heard more information in recent days that makes me think that the Linda Darling-Hammond as Deputy Secretary rumor is true. Jon Schnur, I understand, has agreed to take a job; I’m not sure which one but Alexander is probably right to surmise chief of staff. (He was spotted “behind the glass doors” in the inner sanctum of the Secretary’s office the other day, so maybe he’s already playing that role.) Andy Rotherham, too, is almost certainly going to join the administration. Note to Alexander: it wouldn’t take a very high profile job for Andy to “lord” it over me, as my official title at the Department was “Associate Assistant Deputy Secretary.” It’s not hard to beat that.

As for Wendy Kopp, I hear that she was offered a big job-Deputy maybe?-and turned it down. So too did Ted Mitchell of the NewSchools Venture Fund, among others. Let’s face it: there are plenty of jobs in education reform that are more fun (and more lucrative) than working 80 hours a week for the federal government.

Finally, everyone seems to know that Russlyn Ali, the director of Education Trust-West, is going to be the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.

Stay tuned; Arne Duncan told Alyson Klein at Education Week that the personnel picture would “get a whole lot clearer over the next two weeks.”

UPDATE (5:16 pm): It’s official: former Kennedy staffer Carmel Martin will be Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, and Peter Cunningham will be Assistant Secretary for Communications and Outreach, a role similar to the one he played for Duncan in Chicago. Congratulations!

That’s the rumor circulating today at a Gates Foundation regional convening I’ve been attending: Linda Darling-Hammond is going to be named the next Deputy Secretary of Education. Let’s just say that if the news turns out to be true, you can get ready for a very chilly reading on the Obama Administration Reform-o-Meter!

A colleague writes in to say:

The Duncan appointment is good news, however, I’m still hearing that LDH may get Institute for Education Sciences Commissioner.  That is almost at the level of a classical tragedy–the Roman sack of Carthage, the burning of the library at Alexandria.

She would destroy everything Russ Whitehurst built.  It’s like having a creationist head the National Science Foundation.

This is non-partisan position.  We just want a well-respected researcher heading IES who will push rigorous, scientifically-based research on what works.   

Every serious education researcher to whom I’ve spoken is aghast at the idea of her taking over the agency. 

As a thinker tanker, I have to assume that this line in President-Elect Obama’s speech yesterday was aimed at people like me:

When Arne speaks to educators across America, it won’t be from up in some ivory tower,* but from the lessons he’s learned during his years changing our schools, from the bottom up.

But I take solace in knowing that Linda Darling-Hammond lives in an Ivory Tower too. So for today I’m going to take this as another promising sign that she’s heading back to Palo Alto.

* By the way, wasn’t it the Bush Administration that was famous for anti-intellectualism? This is the kind of rhetoric typically associated with the right. Interesting.

In our first installment of “Questions for Linda Darling-Hammond,” we asked about a chapter she wrote in an anti-NCLB book. In the second installment we asked about key parts of her 1996 manifesto, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future. Today we’re going to turn to a different medium: a webcast. In particular, LDH’s October 21st Education Week debate with Lisa Graham Keegan.

As Ed Week’s Vaishali Honawar reported, the Teach For America program was a point of contention, with Keegan promoting it and Darling-Hammond attacking it.

Darling-Hammond raised concerns about the retention rates of TFA teachers and reeled off statistics citing that 49 percent of teachers who come in without training leave teaching within three years, while only 19 percent that come fully trained through teacher programs do so.

Darling-Hammond also said that TFA and its ilk were not the way to “build the profession.” So let’s get started.

1. Dr. Darling-Hammond: It’s true that most (though certainly not all) TFA teachers leave the classroom after two or three years. Still, most TFA alumni remain involved in education in some way. Many of the best charter schools in the country (themselves among the best urban schools in the country) were founded by former TFA-ers. Other alumni have landed in key roles at think tanks, foundations, on Capitol Hill, state capitals, etc. With that in mind, do you regret your all-out war against the program in the 1990s? Do you think the country’s education system would be in a better situation had you succeeded in defunding and eliminating the program?

2. When you think about the teaching profession, do you picture 30-year careers for most teachers? If so, how do you square that with what we know about Generations X and Y and their penchant for taking up multiple careers over the course of their lifetimes? If a tenure of three years is too short for a teacher to make a difference, how long is long enough?

3. Speaking of numbers, it would be a whole lot easier to build a strong teaching corps if we didn’t need so many teachers. Yet we’ve made a decision in this country to invest in lowering class size (choosing quantity over quality). You’ve been a close ally of the teachers unions, but are you willing to break with them and say that our education system would actually improve if we let class sizes rise?

We look forward to some answers!

Yesterday we launched our new feature, Questions for Linda Darling-Hammond. The idea is to pose queries that she might face at a Senate confirmation hearing, in order to flesh out whether she is a reformer or not.

Today we turn to statements from the 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, which Darling-Hammond wrote as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

1. Dr. Darling Hammond: In What Matters Most, you expressed concern that “well-prepared urban teachers and teachers of color are in short supply.” A recent Education Next article found that states with “genuine” alternative certification programs have a greater representation of minority teachers in their classrooms. Twelve years later, have you come to believe that these streamlined routes to the classroom are worth supporting?

2. Dr. Darling Hammond: In the same report, you wrote that “literally hundreds of studies confirm that the best teachers know their subjects deeply, understand how people learn, and have mastered a range of teaching methods.” Can you point to a single rigorous study—one that would meet our panel’s rigorous definition as “scientific”—that indicates that the best teachers “understand how people learn” and “have mastered a range of teaching methods”? If not, why did you include such a sweeping statement in this report? What are we supposed to believe about your credibilty as a researcher and a presenter of evidence?

3. Dr. Darling-Hammond, in the same report you dedicated a whole section to knocking down the idea that “tenure is the problem.” You wrote that “several local teachers unions, affiliates of both the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, convinced that incompetent teachers harm the entire profession, have taken steps with their school boards to evaluate and assist teachers and counsel poor ones out of the profession, both during probation and after it ends.” If so, can you point to a single large urban district that has “counseled” poor teachers out of the profession at a sizable scale? And without unreasonable costs? If not, are you ready to admit that tenure is a problem?

4. Dr. Darling-Hammond, you dedicated another whole section of that report to knocking down the myth that “unions block reform.” You wrote that “teacher organizations for the 21st century have improved student learning at the heart of their mission.” What percentage of local teacher organizations do you think fit this characterization? What do you make of unions that push for policies such as “last hired, first fired”—which leads to the termination of young teachers, even if they are highly effective? Do these unions have “improved student learning” at the heart of their mission?

We’ll be back next week with another installment.

In a letter to the New York Times, LDH takes issue with David Brooks’ (and others’) depiction of her as a non-reformer:

Since I entered teaching, I have fought to change the status quo that routinely delivers dysfunctional schools and low-quality teaching to students of color in low-income communities. I have challenged inequalities in financing. I have helped develop new school models through both district-led innovations and charters. And I have worked to create higher standards for both students and teachers, along with assessments that measure critical thinking and performance.

I sought to amend and reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act to incorporate these kinds of assessments, while preserving its commitment to closing the achievement gap and ensuring quality teachers. I have also fought to overhaul teacher education programs and close weak ones.

As director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, I was an early advocate for cultivating and rewarding excellent teachers while dismissing those who, with mentoring, do not meet standards.

Real reform will require all of these things, plus the kind of unifying vision Barack Obama has demonstrated – moving beyond the polarizing debates that prevent us from working together to improve education.

Her dean at the Stanford ed school, Deborah Stipek, comes to her defense too:

We do not need polemics or polarization or someone who will silence the voices of any group with a different point of view.

Of the names that have been offered, Stanford University Professor Linda Darling-Hammond is the best qualified for such a leadership position. She has three decades of experience working to improve the quality of teaching, has worked with others to launch successful charter schools and innovative school organizations, has worked with leaders of major school districts across the country to implement fundamental district reform, and been the author of major policy pieces that have improved schools where it matters most – improving student learning. And, most important, she is deeply committed to making American education more equitable and successful for all our children.

The recent commentary have not been about education policy. They have been about politics. They are harmful, because they lead the conversation away from learning and onto divisive ideology. If this strategy wins out, we all lose.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board isn’t so sure:

Darling-Hammond’s early attacks on Teach for America, a nonprofit organization that recruits some of the brightest college graduates into the teaching profession, give us little confidence that she would support innovative approaches to education.

Here’s the rub: while it’s true that pure “ideology” can lead to bad policymaking, I don’t see any mainstream organizations or leaders who are mere ideologues. Consider President Bush, who is known to be a strong conservative yet pushed to expand the federal role quite dramatically. Concern about education “politics,” however, is something much different. Dean Stipek might believe those politics to be out of bounds, but if she thinks there isn’t a relationship between politics and policy, well, she needs to spend more time in the Stanford political science department.

The politics come down to this: our education system is a major employer. It offers pretty decent jobs. People who have those jobs understandably want to keep them. Most should. Most should be rewarded with greater pay and better working conditions. But as in any large organization, there are some bad apples, and we’re in the middle of a painful process in public education in trying to find effective ways to remove those bad apples, while encouraging lots of new talent to come into the system. The teachers unions are going to naturally be wary of this, and push back at every turn. And they have political power. So I would define a reformer as one who will “speak truth to power,” and fight those entrenched interests in the cause of the greater good. Is LDH such a reformer? Stay tuned for our next installment of “Questions for Linda Darling-Hammond.”

Last week’s spate of articles and editorials clarified Linda Darling-Hammond’s role as a lightning rod on the Obama transition team. Not surprisingly, her friends and backers are pushing back against the current “narrative” that she’s anti-reform. Consider this letter to the editor, from Sam Chaltain of the lefty (George Soros-funded) Forum for Education and Democracy, printed in today’s Washington Post:

The claim that Ms. Darling-Hammond represents the “status quo” is ludicrous. Indeed, she has been an articulate advocate for young people throughout her professional life.

She was the founding executive director of the National Commission for Teaching and America’s Future, a panel whose work catalyzed major policy changes to improve the quality of teacher education. She has been a powerful voice for the fundamental principle that all children deserve a well-prepared and properly supported teacher. She has advocated for strong accountability and has offered thoughtful alternatives — a balanced system of measures to evaluate higher-order thinking skills. And she has urged federal policies that would stop the micromanagement of schools and start ensuring educational equity — an issue only the federal government can tackle.

OK, let’s take these claims that she’s “pro-reform” seriously. In coming days we’ll pose a series of questions for LDH, perfect for a confirmation hearing if she were to get nominated to a senior position. We’ll rely especially on what she’s written over the years. (I understand that sets a dangerous precedent. If I’m ever crazy enough to go back to government–and some Administration is ever crazy enough to accept me–surely I’ll be asked why I hate fat teachers.)

Today’s edition will examine a couple of her statements from her 2004 chapter in Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools. (Actually just the first few pages of this chapter, which are available on Amazon for free. Times are tough, even in think-tank land.)

1.       Dr. Darling-Hammond: You wrote that No Child Left Behind “layers onto a grossly unequal–and, in many communities, inadequately funded-school system a set of unmeetable test score targets that disproportionately penalize schools serving the neediest students” (p. 4). In which states do you think test score targets are “unmeetable” by the neediest students? Are you aware that several studies have found most state standards and test “cut scores” to be set at laughably low levels? Do you think needy students are incapable of reaching even these minimal standards?

2.       Dr. Darling-Hammond: About the NCLB law, you wrote that “Some believe this is a prelude to voucher proposals aimed at privatizing the education system” (p. 4). Do you include yourself among the “some”? If so, how do you explain the law’s strong support from the chairman of this committee, Senator Edward Kennedy, as well as most of the Democrats on this panel? Do you believe that we are committed to “privatizing the education system”?

3.       Dr. Darling-Hammond: You consistently point out the inequities in our school system, and complain that federal funding (less than 10 percent of what’s spent on k-12 education) is too little to correct the awful conditions in many schools (p. 8). How much federal money would be enough? Another $25 billion? (That would push the federal share close to 15 percent.) Another $50 billion? (20 percent) And in the meantime, are you proposing to scrap the accountability provisions associated with the law?

If you have additional questions for a future iteration of this feature, send them in!

The news media is clearly anticipating the announcement of an education secretary pick soon, because the k-12 issue hasn’t gotten this much attention since George Bush and Ted Kennedy teamed up to pass the No Child Left Behind Act. First David Brooks and the Washington Post editorial board made the Democratic Party’s education schism official, and then The New Republic turned up the temperature on Linda Darling-Hammond. And now Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter is telling us to buckle our seatbelts because Bill Gates is becoming an education reformer full time. All in the span of a few days!

There’s plenty to like about Alter’s piece; I love the quote by House education committee chairman George Miller that “the debate is between incrementalists and disrupters, and I’m with the disrupters.” (Alter must have sat in on an editorial board meeting with his Post colleagues because they used that terminology too.)

But Mr. Alter, you ought to be ashamed about this line: “We know by now what works for at-risk kids. The challenge is trying to replicate it.” Sure, this is true in the simplest sense. KIPP works. Achievement First works. Cristo Rey works. (Read all about it in David Whitman’s recent Fordham book on “paternalistic” schools.)

But replicating these schools 1,000 or 10,000-fold is more than just a challenge. It might be impossible. Writing in the Gadfly a few weeks ago, Steven Wilson made the very good point that these “no excuses” schools tend to hire graduates from America’s top universities and work them to death. Neither part of that equation is “scalable.” What we need is a school model that gets great results with mere mortals. No one has cracked that nut yet. (Doing R&D on that problem would be an excellent mission for Mr. Gates.)

At least Bill Gates seems to be realistic about Washington’s role in k-12 schools, or at least the political “appetite” for federal involvement. “He says Washington’s job is to spread best practices and help implement accountability standards,” writes Alter, who is clearly disappointed at such reserve. But you know, Gates just might be onto something. What does it say when those of us in education have to learn humility from the world’s richest man?

Well, Mike ain’t gonna be getting a Christmas card from Linda this year. In an article published today in the New Republic, Mike is clear: when it comes to secretary picks, LDH is the “worst case scenario” (of course, Flypaper readers will know that that particular sentiment is old news). The article, which outlines Darling-Hammond’s history in the education community, is certainly right about one thing: her appointment as secretary, deputy secretary, or really any position in the department or administration at all is going to cause a huge uproar. (If her position as transition team education advisor hasn’t done that already.)

Apparently Darling-Hammond doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. She thinks that her “personal opinions” don’t matter because she’s just there to “implement” Obama’s education platform. Well, that’s all warm and fuzzy (or as Mike would say–and did–”The ideas associated with Darling-Hammond are ones that educators love because they’re warm and fuzzy,”) but it still begs the question: what is Obama’s education platform? He certainly did a bang up job playing both sides against the middle during the campaign. And now we’re left wondering where he stands–and when for Pete’s sake he’s going to pick a secretary. Can you blame the reformer for finding Darling-Hammond’s involvement troubling at best (and downright terrifying at worst)? (Just ask Kate Walsh: “The reform community is scared to death.”)

So what do we make of LDH? Well Tom Toch over at Quick and the Ed had nothing but praise for their darling Darling yesterday. In fact, he thinks that her recent article in the Phi Delta Kappan is a promising look into her current thinking–and that her mushy (dare I call them “fuzzy”) conclusions about standards and assessments are good! Sorry, Tom, but I think you may have singlehandedly called for a renaissance of the Quick and the Ed Watch. (And that snarky comment about “anonymous reformers” didn’t help either.) Another day, another day.

The real kicker is LDH playing dumb. Does she think we haven’t read her outrageous research from the last 15 years? And does she think we don’t see the game she’s playing? She has said, for example, that she hates TFA (“TFA is bad policy and bad education,” she wrote once). That certainly seems reasonable… since she’s spent a significant portion of her career studying teacher certification and training. Nobody wants to see their life’s work shown up by a young (in 1992) upstart. Why spent years getting certified when you can be trained in 5 weeks? It’s a reasonable question and one with which Dale Ballou, Vanderbilt education professor, would probably agree. Mike may have not be getting a card but Ballou will get hate mail. In reference to a study Darling-Hammond published arguing that teacher certification is essential to increasing student performance, Ballou had this to say: “She’s either dishonest or the sloppiest person in education research I’ve ever seen.” Yikes.

Of course Darling-Hammond continues to toodle along playing innocent. “The critiques of being ‘old school’ are particularly ironic since I have been fighting for a lot of reforms before they were recently on the national radar,” she told Newsweek. Yeah right. Is that the AFT’s radar–er “table”–you’re talking about? Come clean Linda! We know what you want and we know the stakes. Let’s just hope Obama does too–and chooses reform over status-quo.

Linda Darling-Hammond photograph from Stanford News Service