Hallelujah! 

We’ve already made it quite clear how we feel about this here and here. I will refrain from commenting further.

Last week I made the fairly obvious argument that GOP governors are the key to the Republican Party’s renewal, including on the education issue.

Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, agrees:

I believe renewal and reform will come from the states. There will be, in Washington and New York, a million symposia, think-tank confabs, op-ed pieces, columns and cruises; there will be epiphanies on the Amtrak Acela while delayed at Wilmington; there will be polls and books, and pollsters’ books. All fine and good, and a contribution. But the new emerging Republicans are likely to come in the end from the states, because that is where “this is what works” will come from. It is governance in the states that will yield the things that win-better handling of teachers’ unions,* better management, more effective, just and therefore desirable tax systems. And, of course, more clean lines of accountability.

So what bold reforms could energetic governors embrace, particularly in a time of economic distress? Here are three ideas; if you have others, please post them below or send them to me at mpetrilli@edexcellence.net.

– Put great curricular materials into the hands of teachers, via the Internet. This is an easy win, doesn’t need to be terribly expensive, but is sorely needed. Ask your Department of Education to partner with curriculum developers to take your state standards and turn them into usable, clickable resources for the classroom. Include lesson plans and videos of master teachers delivering them; embedded assessments; readings; digital snippets; the whole shebang.

– Make schools’ finances and results transparent, via the Internet. Empower taxpayers and parents with easily accessible information. It’s a crime that nobody knows how much individual schools spend. Change that. Put it online, down to the last penny. And link spending with results, displayed in user-friendly ways.

– Provide excellent coursework to students, via the Internet. Lots of states are already doing this, of course, via virtual schools, virtual charters, and the like. But there’s still a ton of room for growth, and some gubernatorial leadership could ensure that the resources provided to kids are top-notch, paid for by the state in a way that will keep them getting better, and accessible to the children who need them most.

And yes, this soup has a theme. One thing the Internet is really good at is creating efficiencies. And we all know that we need those now. So get to it, guvs.

* GOP heads-of-states might learn a thing or two about that from a couple of Democrats in that non-state called the District of Columbia.

The Washington Post has a front-page story today about the Republican Governors Association meeting being held in Florida this week. Not surprisingly, the guvs are gloomy, and they are pointing fingers at their colleagues in the Administration and Capitol Hill for making a mess of the Republican brand.

But governors, get a grip. Don’t expect salvation from Washington. While Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America deserved much credit for bringing the GOP back from the abyss in 1994, its arguments to devolve power to the states and limit the federal government were salable only because people could point to bold, reform-minded governors who were really shaking things up. Think John Engler on education, Tommy Thompson on welfare, and on and on.

Who are the reform governors now? Tim Pawlenty is good on pay-for-performance, and Bobby Jindal got a small voucher program through his Southern legislature. That’s an OK start. But it’s not much to brag about.

What the GOP most needs are at least a handful of governors to make bold, competent moves in policy areas voters care about, including education. So who’s it going to be?

Photograph of Bobby Jindal from Office of the Governor – State of Louisiana website

A post from guest blogger and Fordham Director of Ohio Policy and Research Suzannah Herrmann.

As Stafford mentioned, we just returned from the National Press Club. Since today’s presentation by the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning has some interesting implications for state policy, I thought I’d throw in my perspective on what this report could mean for policy in Ohio, Fordham’s other base.

The report notes up front that “states will never educate all students to high standards unless they first fix the finance system that support’s America’s schools.” This is not the same thing as calling for more money for schools, but rather it is a call for making sure we get more from the $500 billion Americans already spend annually on elementary and secondary education. This call has special resonance in our home state of Ohio where the Governor has staked his administration’s reputation on “fixing” the state’s school funding system. Ohio is one of 20 states that have been deemed “unconstitutional” by state high-court judges because funding levels were deemed insufficient. This report “Funding Student Learning” notes that between 1990 and 2005, average inflation-adjusted expenditures on education in America increased 29% to almost $11,000 per student. In Ohio, ten years (1997 to 2007) saw state per-pupil expenditures, using inflation adjusted dollars, rise 25% (from $7,500 to about $10,000). We must get more out of our educational spending and this report by the National Working Group on Funding Student Learning provides important guidance on how to start doing this. You can read the whole report here.

Education may not be making the national political scene (whatever Palin’s personal opinions) but it’s far from off the states’ radar, reports the National Conference of State Legislatures. In fact, fifteen states have dozens of referendums, constitutional amendments or citizen initiatives dealing with education on the November ballot. The topics range from upping funding sources with more slot machines to scrapping education staples affirmative action and bilingual education. But before we call up the Gates Foundation and tell them to reconsider Ed in ‘08, consider this. It takes months for these kinds of proposals to make it onto the ballot. And the economy is still a hard act to upstage at this point, despite the lure of more casinos. EdWeek has the whole list of topics.

So says Checker Finn in today’s Columbus Dispatch. For some good advice about education in Ohio, and beyond, see here and here.

In Chicago today, students boycott school to protest their lack of learning.

Gadfly doesn’t like it.

Checker takes to the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed pages to communicate to Ohioans this message: Wake up.

Checker laments in today’s Ohio Education Gadfly that policymakers in Fordham’s home state have gone soft on education.

A post from guest blogger and Fordham Vice President for Ohio Programs & Policy Terry Ryan.

Ohio’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Susan Zelman, announced to her staff today that she will be stepping down as state superintendent. She is leaving after several months of public, and sometimes nasty, tussling with Governor Strickland and his emerging agenda for Ohio’s K-12 education. Dr. Zelman will be missed, and now speculation turns to her possible successor. Scott Elliott of the Dayton Daily News has listed on his blog four possible candidates (including the Governor’s wife). He is seeking suggestions on other names to consider; if you have any insights here please share with Scott and his readers.

I’m encouraged this morning reading this article about Idaho’s work in crafting standardized performance evaluations for teachers. Apparently, some are hoping it paves the way for pay-for-performance plans for teachers (another good thing).

To be sure, recent reports indicate that teacher evaluations are pretty poor on the whole. I’ve had the opportunity over the years to take a look at some of these evaluations, particularly those in urban school districts, and concur that they can be pretty embarrassing, often treating “personal hygiene” on the same plane as “teacher knowledge of subject”–that is, if the latter is even included.

To be fair, there are some fantastic evaluation instruments out there for assessing teachers’ skills and knowledge. The Teacher Advancement Program, for instance, has one they use as part of their professional development and performance-based pay program. It’s a research-based rubric that includes nearly 20 indicators (such as teacher content knowledge, teacher knowledge of students, academic feedback, and use of problem solving skills)–each one with corresponding benchmarks that operationalize what it means to be exemplary, proficient, or needing improvement. Let’s hope the potato state can be a model for other states/districts interested in overhauling their teacher evaluations so that they actually serve to help teachers serve students.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was supposed to be the education governor of California. Since becoming the Golden State’s chief executive, the former Hollywood action star has vowed to bring the same kind of leadership and muscle to education reform as he once brought to the big screen. Daniel Weintraub, in an excellent article in the current issue of Education Next, however, shows Schwarzenegger has been a dismal failure.

The reason:  The Terminator has been tamed by California’s powerful teachers unions. Weintraub, a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, demonstrates that the massive California Teachers Association (CTA) and the feisty California Federation of Teachers (CFA) have successfully blocked almost every major Schwarzenegger initiative. The governor has been reduced to playing defense. He has vetoed countless bills sent to him by the teachers unions’ allies in the Democrat-controlled legislature. Thus, Schwarzenegger has succeeded in protecting California’s effective system of standards, testing, and accountability from being eroded. But he has failed to go on the political offensive, forging the broad-based consensus necessary for overhauling the state’s public schools.

Weintraub concedes that Schwarzenegger’s heart is in the right place. He has good ideas. Schwarzenegger knows what needs to be done to bring about meaningful reform–devolve greater power and authority to local school districts; provide much more flexibility in state education spending; make teaching a true profession by giving teachers more pay and training, while holding them accountable for classroom performance; grant principals the ability to hire and fire their teaching staffs; concentrate on narrowing the achievement gap between students from low-income families and those living in affluent, suburban neighborhoods; and enforce stricter accountability across the board, from county superintendents to principals to educators. The problem with Schwarzenegger is not his policy goals; rather, it is his will–or the lack of it.

One of the reasons for his lack of testosterone is the state’s severe budget crunch. California’s education funding has been cut due to anemic tax revenues. Schwarzenegger has argued that it is unfair and unrealistic to ask the education establishment to accept painful, sweeping reforms as the state slashes spending by 3.5 to 4 billion dollars. I would argue that it’s not unrealistic or even unfair, just difficult.

And his tough talk notwithstanding, Schwarzenegger–at least, when it comes to education–has so far been mostly bark and very little bite. Most experts, including the governor’s chosen research panel which recently published its much-lauded education policy recommendations, have stated that fixing California’s public schools is not a question of money. The system has enough to finance students’ needs. It’s a question of the right policy prescriptions. Schwarzenegger has some excellent ones, which would clearly go a long way toward improving the state’s public education. But all the good proposals in the world don’t amount to much if he is reluctant to spend precious political capital. That takes courage and leadership. Sadly, the Terminator is showing little of either.

Terry posted earlier today on the pressure mounting on attorney general Marc Dann to quit office in light of recent scandals.

He’s just resigned.

Mississippi has passed legislation, and the governor has signed it, that would fire superintendents whose districts are labeled “underperforming” for two years straight. (Before it’s active, the law needs to be approved by the feds, for Civil Rights-related reasons that Education Week explains.) The Gadfly likes the law. I don’t.

Officials note that the Magnolia State is one of just three (in the company of Alabama and Florida) where some superintendents are elected. The thinking is this: Local elections for superintendent are easily corrupted because of their small turnouts; elected superintendents are more likely to make decisions based on politics, not on the interests of students; and elected superintendents, especially those supported by teachers’ unions, may fill the superintendent role for years without appreciably improving the classroom instruction of which they’re ostensibly in charge. (These concerns relate to few. Most superintendents in Mississippi are appointed.) Furthermore, advocates for the new law say, if the state holds teachers accountable, it should treat superintendents similarly.

Fair points, but points outweighed by the pitfalls of Mississippi’s new law. Pitfalls such as: There is no solid definition of “underperforming”; qualified candidates for superintendent positions will be dissuaded from taking open jobs in Mississippi; two years is not enough time to appreciably improve a failing school district; the law’s process for actually firing underperforming superintendents is complicated (see the Ed Week article); and voters are having their democratic voice overturned by the legislature.

To compare Mississippi’s new superintendent accountability with teacher accountability is to compare apples and rodents. Teachers in Mississippi who fail to drastically improve the test scores of their classrooms are not fired after two years–and neither should they be.

Prediction: The feds approve this law and after two or three years everyone in Mississippi hates it and the legislature tosses it out and why did we bother with this crude, top-down, hasty accountability system in the first place?

Photo by Flickr user nmcil.

After months of jockeying with control-freak governor Ted Strickland, Ohio state education superintendent Susan Tave Zelman is on her way out, perhaps to the University of Oregon as ed school dean.

She toughed it out for a while but the handwriting went onto the wall for her once key members of the state board of education decided that placating the governor was more important than retaining Dr. Z, as she is known at the Ohio Department of Education. It must also be said that she didn’t try very hard to placate him herself, seeming more determined to demonstrate independence than to make nice with Bob Taft’s successor and his agenda. She can, in truth, be ornery, strong-willed, and mercurial, in addition to very bright, boundlessly energetic, and quite creative. But there was no way that a principled educator with her track record could have accommodated the Strickland education agenda, such as it is. Much of it, alas, simply involves seizing control of the system and reorganizing the deck chairs rather than repositioning the ship.

But he’s recommended some repositioning, too, in ways that Dr. Z could not (and should not be expected to) stomach, much less preside over. Ohio’s standards and accountability system leaves much to be desired–but the Governor’s goal is to weaken it, not strengthen it. The state’s charter-school and voucher programs also have their flaws–but the Governor’s goal is to eliminate them, not fix them. Indeed, the only way Zelman could in conscience have stayed in Columbus was if she retained independent control of the education department. Once that became unrealistic, her fate was sealed. That’s a pity. I like her personally, admire her pluck and her what’s-good-for-the-kids-not-necessarily-the-grownups orientation and have enjoyed my various dealings with her. Far more important, Strickland is going to be freer to cripple these vitally important policy domains once she’s out of the way. We’ll miss you, Dr. Z, and the state owes you a far greater debt of gratitude than it’s ever likely to pay.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist stands with the state legislature, which just passed an anti-bullying law. “I’m against bullying, too,” he said.

And I’m against purposeless laws that waste everyone’s time.

Colorado lawmakers voted put forward a plan yesterday to align state academic standards with the ACT exam.

This seems wise. Most states have struggled to implement high-quality academic standards in the major subject areas, and in the few states that have raised the bar across the board–California, Massachusetts, Indiana–an exceptional amount of political cooperation was required. Certainly that’s not something most states can count on.

So why not adopt a set of clear, ready-made standards that have received the seal of approval from top universities across the land?

UPDATE: It should also be noted that the bill “laid out a multi-year collaborative process for state education officials” to develop K-12 grade-level standards based on the ACT content.

Ah, the vaunted “multi-year collaborative process for state education officials.” Just when you think they’ve figured out a way to cut through the red tape they wrap themselves up again.

It looks like Missouri will be the next state to adopt the big daddy of alternative certification programs, the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.

Florida’s governor rightly opposes this bone-headed bill.

The New York Times reports today that Idaho will set aside somewhere from $200,000 to $600,000 to fund a pilot program that will make chess education available to all second- and third-graders. The state will use a curriculum called First Move, which was developed by the Seattle-based nonprofit Foundation for Chess.

Third-grade teacher Deborah McCoy has already started teaching chess in her classroom and is quite pleased with the results. “So many kids spend their time plugged into video games, iPods, television and so they are more isolated,” she said. “They learn give and take in chess. There are courtesies that you follow. It has been really beneficial for them.”

You’d have to guess she’s mostly right about the benefits, though one wonders if it’s the state’s place to be experimenting like this with curricula. Once you start offering funding for niche subjects you risk opening the floodgates to every other hobbyist-lobbyist in the state.