Will Arne Duncan Be the Bold Education Reformer Obama Needs?

It's been like a crowded basketball court these past couple of weeks for school improvement advocates with more than a few elbows thrown as everyone vied for the "bold reformer" territory.

At stake has been the leadership and agenda of the Obama administration's Department of Education. The tough love efficiency hawks, as Professor Bruce Fuller referred to them in last week's New York Times, touted district leaders Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee or Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education. Unions pushed for a current or former governor; and grassroots groups, rank and file teachers, and many education leaders supported Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond.

Maybe all those sharp elbows explain why Obama nominated a former pro-basketball player for the Secretary job in choosing Chicago chum Arne Duncan. Duncan clearly is one of the stars of the efficiency crowd, openly touted by Democrats for Education Reform, conservative columnist David Brooks and a New Republic piece to name a few. But these folks may well end up disappointed that Duncan -- with Barack Obama as his boss rather than Richard Daley -- focuses on a broader agenda than their universe of reforms. As I pointed out before Duncan's nomination, Obama's education agenda has always been broader than simply merit pay, school choice and test-based accountability. In an Obama administration, Duncan just might prove to be a Secretary who can bridge the gap between the efficiency hawks and the broader/bolder reform advocates whom the hawks have attacked as status quo protectors. If he can, he could help facilitate the next generation of major federal education reforms.

Duncan was the only prominent figure to sign both circulating manifestos this summer vying for attention at the Democratic Convention -- the mission statement from the efficiency camp-associated Education Equality Project and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education statement. Efficiency hawks are typically loathe to look outside the schoolhouse to improve student achievement. They argue that those who rely on external explanations for test scores are making excuses for the status quo. Meanwhile, the broader/bolder folks espouse moving beyond solely school-focused, test-based accountability policies to improve low-income student outcomes by also focusing on policies that ameliorate the social and economic disadvantages of being poor, such as the lack of access to healthcare and preschool.

Of course, both sides have a point. We shouldn't shun redressing internal school factors where they significantly impair student achievement. If a school doesn't have strong leadership, a coherent curriculum, high expectations and the teachers who can deliver, then substantial social investments into improving a poor student's readiness to learn at the starting gate may largely go to waste. Conversely, if the social investments in pre-school, after-school, and healthcare can also significantly improve achievement for low-income students by providing the supports typically available to middle-class kids, only the stingiest of Scrooges would deny them. Duncan, in signing both manifestos this summer, may be signaling not only an Obamaesque political astuteness, but a genuine willingness to rise above the skirmishes to take what's best for boldly moving forward in the governing style Obama has promised.

On two other fronts, Duncan has signaled he is not in lock step with tough love efficiency advocates. For some in that camp, being anti-union is apparently a sign of the true reformer. Duncan, on the other hand, recognizing that reform is best accomplished with teachers, has earned points from the unions for his efforts to collaborate with them even on tough issues like school closures and pay for performance. That doesn't mean always agreeing with the unions. Here in California for example, my organization, Public Advocates, has maintained respectful relationships with the teachers' unions despite sometimes finding ourselves on different sides of legislation. We differed sharply, for example, with the California Teachers' Association over a law enacted two years ago that permits principals in low-performing schools to reject "lemon" teachers despite their seniority transfer rights. (Not infrequently, ineffective teachers pushed out of better-performing schools trickle down the system to the lowest-performing schools.) According to at least one key staffer, the bill would not have made its way out of the Legislature without Public Advocates' vocal support. But the fact that we opposed each other on that occasion hasn't prevented our continuing to collaborate with the unions on other matters. Duncan seems to evince a similar posture of principled, respectful collaboration.

The efficiency hawks also tend to oppose traditional teacher preparation programs and tout alternative routes like Teach for America (TFA) and the New Teacher Project fellows. Duncan has voiced support for TFA and uses their teachers to fill shortages in Chicago. At the same time, he has pioneered a teaching residency alternative model that significantly improves on TFA's. The residency model does not place brand new candidates immediately in charge of their own classrooms like TFA does. Instead, for a year, it pairs novices with master teachers who retain control of the class. In exchange for committing to teach in a high-need school for three years after their year of training, residents earn a stipend to support themselves during their residency, at the end of which they earn a master's degree, full certification, and the responsibility to take on their own classroom. This innovative model may well prove the future for alternative preparation programs. In a little noticed provision in the Higher Education Act re-authorization passed by Congress this August, Senator Obama included a grant program for the establishment of more teaching residency programs -- like the one Duncan helped pioneer at the Dodge Academy in Chicago where Obama announced his appointment last week.

Of course, important issues lie immediately ahead for Obama and his education agenda. To ensure he and Duncan are receiving the best ideas of the broader/bolder advocates, they still need to make high-level appointments from that camp. Obama's $18 billion promised increase in education funding pales in comparison to his projected economic stimulus, but it is nonetheless at risk given the economy and just how much he'll be putting before Congress with the stimulus package. Finally, the basketball buddies also need to deliver on a key Obama campaign promise -- reiterated in his remarks introducing Duncan. In addition, to holding teachers and schools accountable for improving student achievement, Obama asserted that we must hold the government accountable too ("even me" he said on the trail).

Holding the government accountable for ensuring essential resources are in place, including high quality teachers in high-need schools, is critical to any real bold reform. That also means ensuring there are policies encouraging parent and community engagement in place at the district and state levels to press policymakers to do their share. One-way, top-down accountability systems that punish schools for not succeeding but effectively relieve government actors from responsibility for ensuring the conditions of success produce, at best, incremental improvements.

Barack Obama has promised an ambitious education agenda that enacts a bolder two-way accountability. He has now chosen a friend and confidant not far from his own ambitious but collaborative mode. Will they rise above the false dichotomies and the sharp rhetoric of recent weeks and months? The first step of Duncan's appointment is tentatively promising, but a lot of hard work lies ahead before the Democrats' disparate education factions are a smooth-running team working towards the same bold reforms.

Comments

[Mack20]

This poor guy will be as toothless and ineffective as every other Sec. of Ed. has been for the last 30 years. As long as the NEA is around and the liberal members of congress protect them, our public education system will continue to slide beyond mediocrity and toward ultimate ineffectiveness. This is a perfect example of how liberalism is an outright failure. They have had a choke hold on public education for years and look at the results. Now they want to control pre-school education? That control will not improve the current percentage of illiterate graduates. It will however improve the knowledge that 4 year olds have of sex education.

[blindjester]

Total cr@p.

Since at least 2000, schools have been run with a hyper-conservative plan. NCLB is about "standards-based" education-­-conservat­ive. High-stakes testing--c­onservativ­e. Punishing schools--c­onservativ­e. Approved corporate textbooks and programs--­conservati­ve. Phonics-based reading--c­onservativ­e. Collaborative decision-making, common in the 90s, is gone. It's all top-down now--conservative.

And you might be surprised to learn that republicans become teachers in about the same percentage that they become anything else. So when you trash educators, you're including your peeps, too.

[stell]

Of course not. He was added to help refine the status quo. Let's face it when we are talking about education reform, we're talking to a large extent about the "inner city", and to a lesser extent about rural education, and some of the "white sacrifices" that suffer from this unjust system as well.

The cost of continuing the status quo will only become bigger and bigger. The private schools aren't even up to par, to be truthful when compared to so-called developing countries in the areas of math and science. Even if you think blacks were/are the stupidest people on the planet, that would be all the more reason to make sure that they get the most help possible. This country could have made them geniuses if it wanted to, because everyone has a talent. But why would someone teach you correctly, when they won't even treat you correctly?

Needless to say this is a self-destructive system. And the seeds of the destruction of the system, are sown into it.

[tbone99]

As long it is perfectly acceptable to allow different per capta funding by district children in poor districts will suffer. Combine that with punishing poor children for their test scores by a fast turnover of teachers and principals and closing neighborhood schools down and you you have effectively disenfranchsed communities from having any input into their childrens schooling.

NCtLB just finishes off the job begun by gutting welfare and making poverty shameful . Instead of a temporary state needing a hand up to be able to effectively compete in the marketplace people have been stigmatized for not being able to produce wealth out of nothing. The money for welfare and schools has been moved from helping poor families, to enriching the investment class and enriching producers of the latest educational innovation. (such as Neil Bush - producer of test materials )

[stell]

Good points, but the poverty you speak of is a form of violence in and of itself. But I guess that's for a different thread.

[ja0862]

Actually Bruce Fuller described Klein and Rhee as tough love efficiency hawks, WITHOUT ANY LOVE. Why report inaccurately?

[TopProf]

This article is somewhat better than recent Huff posts but still misses the mark. Right wingers hijacked the word "reform" by tagging it to voucher advocates. Those people don't want to reform public schools they want to destroy public schools, just like neocons wanted to privatize the military. Now this author wants to style that same group as "efficiency hawks." What is efficient about vouchers? So far there has been no credible study run by independent researchers to show that voucher schools have had a positive influence on school achievement or have increased the overall quality and opportunity for students. No matter what they are called, this crowd is just union-hating free marketeers.. This author seems to be equating anyone interested in what happens in classrooms as unionists who only care about tenure. You give teachers unions way too much credit. They don't always (or ever) speak for teachers.
The new SOC may have done a couple of good things, but he failed to un-do the pernicious and self-defeating test-score based decisions that hurt the public schools in Chicago. There is substantial evidence that those reforms did more harm than good.

[VikingQuest]

Well I live in a liberal state and their answer for YEARS is every time there is an election to throw more money at the education system and maybe it will work.

Guess what, inner-city schools get the most money and they can't graduate 50% of their students while the burbs easily surpass that with a lot less.

Unless parents care about their kids eduication, any program from Washington or at a local/state level is pointless.

[gr8by]

Arne Duncan would disagree with you. Check out this video of him talking about Community Schooling.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=arne%20duncan&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#

"Before we blame parents we need to be self-critical and look in the mirror first."

I agree with him. After years of hearing educators blaming parents - I am so relieved to be now working in an 'community schooling' model - where we are looking with an honest eye at equalizing the playing field for students. It is getting great results as well.

Community schooling is the most exciting model around - and Arne Duncan was an early advocate for the movement.

[TopProf]

Unfortunately you have no hard evidence for such an assertion that inner city schools get "more money." Look at per pupil allocation across any district or state and you'll see a brutal and unjust allocation that favors the well-off. Agree that parents matter, but what makes schools matter to parents? Are you arguing that middle class parents care more education because of their class or race? Out with it.

[Mack20]

Sorry pal but the "well off" simply pay their taxes and send their kids to private schools. Since you wise educators have been running the public education system so long you should know first-hand why inner city schools are the lousiest. The big cities and their school districts are run by liberal, corrupt politicians. Not too hard to figure out.

[matandch]

In reality Americans DO NOT VALUE EDUCATION ONE IOTA!!
Teachers are treated as an adversary to be ridiculed, taunted, and scorned upon. E ven in the movies teachers are portrayed this way. Education is looked upon as a drain on our resources, rather than an investment in our future. We are in a race for the BOTTOM! Given a choice between a presidental candidate who graduated at the top of his class or at the bottom, Americans invariable take the bottom guy. Why? because they identify better with the dumb guy who is closer to the bottom where they are. Misery loves company. Be sure NO ONE has a good job, NO ONE has health insurance, NO ONE has a pension. See you at the bottom!

[blindjester]

I agree.

It isn't just teachers that are ridiculed and scorned, though. It's the earnest, hard-working students that are scorned. Depending on where you live, they are called nerd, geek, schoolboy, keener, over-achiever, or worse. The attitude is embedded in our culture.

It might as well be poison.

[tbone99]

Inner city school are also less likely to have decent infrastructure, older buildings with more maintence and thery frequently house magnet schools for the elite children of the urban scene where most of the district money is spent , in order to keep the schools full enough to continue operating them.

Since each district raises its own money through real estate taxes , surburban schools and little "urban white enclaves:' usually are able to raise much more tax money to support their schools, only. In addition these schools are able to draw from a more affluent PTA and "tax deductible "gifts from wealthy parents.

[VikingQuest]

Fine, let's put the inner city kids from Detroit in the newest building with golden drinking fountains.

What happens to their 25% graduation rate?

[matandch]

C'mon, when the hell did any state ever throw "real' money at education? NEVER! It's a myth. I said it in another post in this thread: education is looked upon as a drain on our resources, rather than an investment in our future. Let's try an experiment: INVEST real money in education and see what happens. Energy independence? Who knows...it just might happen with the right attitude!

[VikingQuest]

What is real money in your mind?

The national average is over $9,000 and New York is spending $15,000 per pupil on K-12 isn't enough?

Is $15k not enough real money to support coloring pictures for a 1st grader?

[poomplet]

jeezus...why does anyone care a ratzass about Arnie Duncan?

The very idea that the Sec. of Education can 'reform' anything is utterly flawed. 90% (or more) of K-12 public education is paid for, controlled by and reformed/unreformed by STATE AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES!!!

[gr8by]

Do you have any idea how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) or Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) affects schools?

[TopProf]

Agree that most functions are controlled at state and local level. However, the past two SOEs have had enormous control over both testing and reading policies, and not for the good. So it's wrong to dismiss his influence.

[BSERIUS]

No... Unless Arne eliminates tenure , the bane of education and replaces with merit...How about choice of schools and vouchers .. Progressive Choice only involves terminating unborn children

[VikingQuest]

I know what you are talking about from experiencing those teachers who can't be tossed.

That is what you get with unions though, protection.

Last I checked, unions own Democrats therefore that will not be a change you will ever see.

[blindjester]

What ignorant, lazy scapegoating.

Any teacher can be fired. You are completely mistaken.

My liberal, whole-lang­uage-lovin­g wife (and one-time president of her local association while still a teacher) fired many underperforming teachers in the last several years as principal in a mostly low-income school. She took this step only after working diligently in every case to help them improve. (Other struggling teachers, mostly new to the field, did improve, and became valued educators.)

Because she followed the process (which is different in particulars from district to district state to state, but usually includes improvement plans, additional training and extra observations) and sincerely tried to help them do what they couldn't, none of them were angry at her at the end, and moved on to careers more suited to them. And she never had a problem with the union, because she honored the agreement at every step.

Not everybody is cut out to be a teacher, and those of us in the union know that as well as anybody.

We need real solutions to the big problems we're facing. Blaming teachers and unions is not only unhelpful, it's dead wrong.

[Camel54]

Tenure doesn't mean a teacher can't be fired (are you paying attention Viking?). Tenure just means that an administrator needs to go through a great deal of due diligence before firing a teacher. It is setup to encourage the administrators to help teachers be the best teachers they can be before resorting to firing. If it was easy to fire teachers, there would be a constant revolving door of teachers is many schools resulting in an even greater level of inexperience in the schools where experience is needed most.

As for your school choice and vouchers, let me ask you this, if you have 3 schools in a district that are all very good, high performing schools, and you have 12 that are not, given the choice, the parents in those 12 schools are going to want their kids in those top 3 schools. How will they all physically fit? Once you fill up the top three schools, kids will only be able to choose from the 4th top performer, then the 5th till eventually, some kids will be stuck with the school at the bottom of the performance list because there physically is not room for them anywhere else. How do you decide who gets stuck with school 15?

[camper65]

NO!!

[vegas9999]

Another reason why spending on higher education may correlate with negative economic growth is that once students get into an academic environment, they are saturated with leftist politics and want to become lawyers or environmental activists who sue companies for creating products and try to prevent anybody from doing anything ("The Phantom Gains of College Aid," Steve Malanga, PostOpinion, Dec. 11).

If colleges encourage more students to study engineering and science, something useful might come out of it.

[newshound1]

Seems like the problem might have been too many students taking the non-ethical MBA approach and ending up on Wall Street.

[boojer]

I despair when I read these postings which sound like people arguing where to place a band-aid on a dying man. Both the efficiency hawks and the status quo protectors are beating a dead horse, a 19th century institution trying to operate in a 21st century world.

In these dire economic times these arguments are like arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. All of us, the Obama administration, Arne Duncan, the governors and legislatures, the policy wonks, the unions, the bloggers on this post, have to look outside the box to find a solution.

And there is a solution. As Clayton Christensen argues in his book "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns," in a faltering, labor intensive industry with a mediocre product and a shortage of human capital, one must look to technology to turn it around.

It is possible for children to learn with the help of high quality on-line products with built-in assessment tools that constantly monitor their performance. It is possible for them to proceed at their own pace, in their own time, with or without live instructors depending on their age and circumstances. It is possible for them to be connected to the world's knowledge outside of expensive and obsolete buildings and books.

Instead of trying to resurrect a dying man, why aren't the powers that be and those who inform them looking to what the 21st century has to offer?

[VikingQuest]

One problem I always see with colleges is that they all try to be everything to everyone. In Minnesota you can get a business degree from about 20+ schools. Why not give them funding based on specialties so instead of funding 20 schools that do the same thing, fund 5 and increase the value of those degrees so they actually mean something.