Yesterday’s debate about the future of the Republican Party on education, sponsored by Fordham, left me feeling depressed. (See my live-blogging here, here, here, here, and here. The video will be available this afternoon.)

It’s not that our participants didn’t have thoughtful things to say. They did. Senator Lamar Alexander argued for a Lincolnian approach to education-one that focuses on providing “opportunity” to parents and students and teachers, rather than the Rooseveltian “Command and Control” system we have today. Senator Jim DeMint spoke eloquently about the need to “customize” our education system for the individual child by expanding choices. And Representative Mike Castle demonstrated his deep substantive knowledge around issues such as growth models, graduation rates, and assessments. (He also helpfully expressed his view that national standards and tests are “worthy of discussion.”)

As far as “the vision thing,” buzzwords like “opportunity” and “customization” and “choice” aren’t bad. And for sure it makes sense to adopt growth models, common grad rates, and so forth. But none of this strikes me as particularly fresh, or all that different from what Democrats are saying.

Of course, the best those of us at Fordham could come up with was “Reform Realism,” which is admittedly wonky. But we think tanks are supposed to be the fount of new ideas, so let me take another stab. How about a focus on research-and-development, which, as we argued in our “Open Letter” to Congress and the Administration, should be the engine of federal policymaking, rather than the caboose? Why shouldn’t the GOP embrace a major new investment in rigorous research, evaluation, and new product development-grants that would flow largely through the Institute of Education Sciences but would also be available for non-profit and for-profit entrepreneurs that are working to create cutting-edge learning solutions? Make it clear to America’s innovators that if they turn their talents to developing technologies that transform teaching and learning, we’ll make it worth their while.

Have a better idea? Send it my way: mpetrilli@edexcellence.net.

Fordham President Checker Finn discusses Fordham’s Open Letter, new research, school funding, and more Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show this morning, December 30. You can listen to the interview here.

In light of this morning’s release of Fordham’s open letter, this article from Tuesday’s NY Times seemed all the more appropriate. It’s about early childhood education, which President-elect Obama brought up many times during the campaign (more times, say, than NCLB), and which was a highlight of his Duncan announcement speech in Chicago. In fact, during that speech (during which, of course, NCLB was, again, not mentioned), Obama repledged $10 billion to early childhood programs. This part was particularly telling: 

And the $10 billion Mr. Obama has pledged for early childhood education would amount to the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. Now, Head Start is a $7 billion federal program serving about 900,000 preschoolers.

“People are absolutely ecstatic,” said Cornelia Grumman, executive director of the First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group. “Some people seem to think the Great Society is upon us again.” 

Let’s just hope this isn’t the first leak of Obama’s education platform. As the Notorious B.I.G. wisely once said, (when it comes to education policies and the federal government) “It’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see.”

Now that there’s a Secretary-Designate for the Department of Education, we at Fordham are ready with some advice for him. Today we are releasing an "open letter" to the Obama Administration and the incoming Congress about federal policymaking in the years to come. It’s our first official statement on No Child Left Behind (and a few other federal efforts) in several years, and it introduces a new "camp" to the debate: Reform Realists . We think that Arne Duncan just might be a "reform realist" himself. (Of course, everyone thinks Arne Duncan is one of their own , so why should we be any different?)

In the letter, we review the current education policy landscape and its main players, and offer our view of the ideal K-12 federal role. We also address the ten big policy battles that are looming on the horizon. In summary, we think that the various education associations, interest groups, experts and think tanks can be broken down into three major groups with distinct agendas:

• The System Defenders . This camp believes that the public education system is fundamentally sound but needs additional resources in order to be more effective.
• The Army of the Potomac. This camp holds generally sound instincts about reform, but suffers from a boundless faith in Washington’s ability to accomplish significant positive change in K-12 education.
• The Local Controllers . This camp wants Uncle Sam, for the most part, to butt out of K-12 education-but to keep sending money.

We support a fourth approach, which we call Reform Realism . On the ideological spectrum, it would fit between the NCLB supporters in the center (The Army of the Potomac) and the Local Controllers on the right. But we actually believe that it might serve as a Grand Compromise between all the factions (including the System Defenders on the left).

Read the letter to learn more, and watch for today’s Gadfly , where we’ll spell out our argument that Reform Realism is a path Arne Duncan should pursue.

Update: The National Review’s Pete Wehner weighs in on Reform Realism on The Corner .

White House photograph by Laura Elizabeth Pohl