Education Reform Is a Vote for the Economy

Super Tuesday is upon us, and voters are likely nearing the selection of a GOP candidate to oppose President Obama in November. As people go to the polls in ten states on Tuesday, what should they be looking at in choosing their candidates?

We hear that the voters of 2012 care only about things like "jobs and unemployment," "retirement security," "housing" and "debt" -- those things that make up the "Big E," what we commonly refer to as "the economy."

But there's another "E" missing from the equation that actually feeds -- or starves -- even the best economy. It's called Education, and its reform is the imperative for a nation that continues to lag in achievement and finances.

In every state and community, education reform is the battle cry for those most afflicted by the nation's 2,000 failing high schools, and for the approximately 70 percent of kids who are not learning at either national or international benchmarks. There are solutions to these true economic deficiencies (yes, education is vital to a healthy economy!) ranging from more choices in public and private education, teacher and parent empowerment, higher standards, better content, online delivery, tenure reform and more.

I don't know why the candidates don't seem to recognize, or discuss this. Where are the media pundits on the candidates' positions on K-12 education? Is it fatigue? Apathy? We have heard for so long how terribly broken our education system is. The problems seem intractable, and perhaps voters are simply tired of hearing about it.

If that's the case, I suppose it's understandable. After all, the most recent Nation's Report Card was particularly grim, showing that barely 40 percent of our 4th- and 8th- grade students are proficient in math and reading. SAT and ACT scores have remained flat, demonstrating that a majority of our students are not ready for college. And globally, the United States has slipped to 16th in college education attainment, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

That's why the candidates should be asked the hard questions, and why they should talk about the most controversial answers. We must insist the candidates use their public positions to address the issues most connected to the economic mess we are in: education.

"Choice" and "accountability," once not even in the vernacular, are now the watchwords of education reform, but in many places they are still just that: words. We must continue to demand schools and teachers be held accountable for better results. As students in communities across the country are being offered more and better choices where their own schools are failing, we must remember that far too few are empowered to do so.

If you are in one of the ten Super Tuesday states, make it clear that education is not some "other" thing -- a luxury issue that we can only afford to consider when times are flush. Tell your friends, your media and your candidates that education reform is fundamental to our nation's economic success.

Tucked away in a corner of every candidate's website lies a position paper that describes his solutions to a problem that desperately needs fixing. Voters should find it, read it, and consider it when making their decisions --- on Tuesday and in November.

It's basic math, really: A vote for real education reform = a vote for an improved economy.

 

Follow Jeanne Allen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeanneAllen

Comments

[snesich]

04:45 AM on 03/20/2012

At a minimum, Jeanne Allen should be honest about the interests paying her to memorize and recite these deceptive and mendacious lines. It's shameful.

And while I've been a big admirer of Huffington Post since its inception, they need to do some more homework from time to time. It took me all of 30 seconds to find out that CFR is a hard-right group funded by extremist conservative organizations.

Nothing personal, but I don't trust Ms. Allen. She's either woefully ignorant of the actual facts or she is just so committed to her funder's right-wing extremist agenda that is doesn't matter.

[WAGPOPS]

05:58 PM on 03/05/2012

We're watching Ed Reform play out locally, as parents in our district are fighting 4 corporate run charter school chains looking to co-locate in our public schools in Brooklyn. The area where we live does not have failing schools. In fact, 2 of our schools are among the highest performing in all of NYC. And there's room for children in these schools. Corporate run charter school chains are not the kind of ed reform that we want. We believe that the best learning environment have a combination of strong leadership, meaningful curriculum, devoted teachers, parent engagement, and diversity in the classrooms. All that comes with Ed Reform - co-locating corporate run charter school chains and the high stakes testing that legitimizes them - are like community napalm. PLEASE stop. Oh, and please stop blaming teachers for poverty while you're at it.

[WAGPOPS]

05:25 PM on 03/05/2012

We're watching Ed Reform play out locally in the wealthier part of our district in Brooklyn, where Success Academy and Eva Moskowitz' husband are bringing 4 corporate run chain schools into our neighborhood. Our schools are not failing by a long shot. On a local level, we can see that all that ed reform brings (corporate run charter school chains and the high stakes testing that supports them) are napalm balms to our community. We support our neighborhood schools. All the evidence shows that the best schools share 5 things in common - strong leadership, meaningful curriculum, diversity in the classroom, parent engagement, and devoted teachers. That's the kind of education reform I stand behind. I want educators, not hedge funders and the politicians in their pockets, deciding what our schools look like.

[Kent Brockman]

03:53 PM on 03/05/2012

29 years since A Nation at Risk. 29 years of data based 'Education Reform.'. Can ANYONE say our school system is better now than it was in 1982? We need Reformer Reform. Hold these so called reformers accountable for what they hath wrought. And when people such as Jeanne Allen open their mouths to spew their snake oil, they should be pointed at and ridiculed.

[calamityjohn]

10:37 AM on 03/05/2012

Constantly I see those in Ed. "reform" decrying our scores in international testing .. but then never do I see them looking for solutions based on the actions of those countries that do better than us.

[10YearTeacher]

02:40 PM on 03/04/2012

"After all, the most recent Nation's Report Card was particularly grim, showing that barely 40 percent of our 4th- and 8th- grade students are proficient in math and reading. SAT and ACT scores have remained flat, demonstrating that a majority of our students are not ready for college. And globally, the United States has slipped to 16th in college education attainment, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development."
-This report card belongs to NCLB, and its emphasis on test based "accountability" and "school choice. If these two concepts were really good solutions to our problems, we would have seen some results by now. NCLB has been around for a decade, and charter schools have been around for almost 20 years. Neither has done much to improve the education situation, but this author says we need to continue and expand them? One the the definitions of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

[perlin]

08:24 PM on 03/04/2012

Ms. Allen should be kept accountable for spreading and promoting the broken ideas that have been damaging our schools for the last 10 years.

[eceresa]

11:43 AM on 03/04/2012

What's sort of hilarious is how you wring your hands at the poor performance of students, and then loudly call for more of the failed policies that have led to that outcome. Get rid of tenure and hold teachers responsible for student failure? Open up school choice so that parents can shop for a school that will give their little underachiever an A? You're going to see even more uneducated kids, which will probably (since the reality is obvious, but you're refusing to see it right now) cause you to call for MORE anti-teacher policies and MORE choice, which lead to LOWER achievement, which will make you call for MORE...

School choice rarely helps. It's failed, overall, pretty much wherever it's been tried. Holding teachers responsible when students don't do the work or don't even show up has failed as well. Yes, we need higher standards. But if they're actually going to be anything other than words on paper that people ignore, we need teachers who are secure enough in their jobs to hold kids to those standards. If tenure disappears and an irate helicopter parent can get a teacher fired, those standards don't mean anything. If school choice sets up a competition between schools and districts, the ones that hand out A's like candy are going to be full and the ones that enforce the standards are going to be laying off teachers. And again, the standards don't mean anything.

[perlin]

12:51 AM on 03/04/2012

If only teachers could walk on waters ...
Privatization of public education, firing and bashing teachers will not bring "better results" because the low tests scores in so called "failing schools" are not the teachers' fault. I say it again, the teachers are not a problem. The high poverty level in failing neighborhoods across America, disrespect for teachers and anti-teacher hysteria, lack of STUDENTS accountability for learning, the culture of disrespect toward teachers are the problem. People like you make this problem worse since " the accountability" for you means only one thing, blaming the teachers for everything and demanding the more charters.
If we want to eradicate the achievement gap we could start from apologizing the hard working urban teachers and demanding more support for them.The meaningful education reforms and better results depend upon clear and deep understanding how the poverty affect the learning.
Demand an accountability from the politicians, highly paid bureaucrats, community leaders, and students.There are many reasons for the weak performing students in urban, high poverty neighborhoods Drugs, crime, poverty, dysfunctional families, culture of abuse and neglect are among them. Being blind to reality shows that you are not serious about education reform.

[nypoet22]

06:36 PM on 03/04/2012

agreed. here's one of my favorite explanations:

http://www.cagle.com/2010/04/teachers-in-1960-and-2010-color/

[DeweyJ]

12:09 PM on 03/07/2012

That couldn't be more accurate. Thanks.

[Lalathewonderllama]

08:48 PM on 03/04/2012

Fanned! Society's problems are complex, bashing the compassionate and hardworking teachers isn't helping anyone. Thanks for sharing.

[Online Degree]

08:34 PM on 03/03/2012

I agree with you. Candidates must really need to focus on giving importance to education in their society because good education can lead to good community. If we are all knowledgeable, then we can all contribute well in the success of our own country.

[SupportPublicEd]

11:55 PM on 03/03/2012

Unfortunately, the agenda of reform supported by this author and her organization is working to gut public schools. It is a thinly veiled attempt to weaken unions and allow the private sector to profit from education through charters and online education. It should be obvious that this author does not support public education when she blames the country's economic crisis on failing schools. You need look no further than the list of corporate backers to see who is really to blame for our economic woes.

http://supportpubliceducation.blogspot.com/

[SupportPublicEd]

12:03 AM on 03/04/2012

If you want to be knowledgeable, educate yourself about the pseudo-reform platform of CER and the Broad and Gates foundations that support it. This article is a call for the end of public education - why else would the author blame failing schools for the country's economic crisis?

http://supportpubliceducation.blogspot.com/

[Lalathewonderllama]

08:51 PM on 03/04/2012

Thank you for your insight.

[The Awkward Educator]

06:52 PM on 03/03/2012

Thank you for this article. It would be great to see a candidate who could clearly articulate the long-term benefits of education reform (including those outside the classroom factors as teen homelessness and pregnancy, domestic abuse and malnutrition to name a few) versus the short-term savings. Education reform is the foundation that our national destiny will be built upon. It should be at the forefront of every debate and stump speech. Perhaps we are not doing enough to demand that it is?

[SupportPublicEd]

11:59 PM on 03/03/2012

The outside the clsasroom factors you list are a much more powerful reform platform than anything CER has ever put forward. The author would not support doing that though - her organization is more focused on destroying public education and replacing it with a for-profit corporate model. It is a hostile takeover of public education.

[The Awkward Educator]

08:32 PM on 03/04/2012

Thank you but lets all consider we have the same end goal in mind: making all of our nation's students prepared to be the best citizens possible. This helps every American out. Lets put our differences aside and all come to the table ready to take bold and unified actions.

[jeffrey678]

04:55 PM on 03/03/2012

Center for Education Reform is a Corporate lobbying group for privatizing school systems and increasing profits with taxpayer money.

http://www.edreform.com/?s=funding

[SupportPublicEd]

11:37 PM on 03/03/2012

Yes. Both the Gates and Broad foundations donate to them. These pseudo-reformers are doing more to damage public education than their corporate buddies have done to damage the economy.

[jeffrey678]

04:39 PM on 03/03/2012

Dumbing down the citizenry.

[Jerry Lammers]

11:02 AM on 03/03/2012

The only effective reform of education that the Federal Government can make is to repeal all Federal Laws pertaining to all levels of education and return the educational process completely to local control.

[John Goucho]

10:00 AM on 03/03/2012

i applaud your call for reform regardless of which candidate or party is willing to take up the call. There was a time when Ted Kennedy led the charge, so I believe this should be non-partisan. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. This is approach by those that resist reform and place the system over the students. I have seen too many that see reform as a constant call to increase investment in the current system when failure has been so apparent.

Today, unemployment is 15% for the 1/3 of the country with HS and below educations. Our HS system does NOT prepare one for college m less employability. The 27% that have BA+ enjoy 85% better earnings and yet, they are poorly prepared and we lack the commitment to engineering, science and math skills. Our higher ed system has increased costs faster than healthcare costs and at 2x the rate of inflation, spurred on by tenure and student loans that reward all colleges and degrees equally without regard to their value, quality, or outcomes. We MUST reform the system to provide opportunity for all.

[eceresa]

11:45 AM on 03/04/2012

There's reform, and then there's "reform." What this woman is calling for is "reform" in name only; it makes things worse. People who oppose it are entirely in the right.

Yes, there are actually reforms that could and should be implemented. But what she's prescribing will make things worse.

[changing]

12:22 AM on 03/03/2012

Totallly backwards (intentionally). A vote for the economy is a vote for education. It is not about education-it is about poverty. Check out the good schools -they are all middle class and the failing one are poor schools.

And a vote for your version of deform is a vote against democracy, public education, and the children of our country.

And you have no reason to censor my post.