LITTLE ROCK — With a defeat that drilled deep into state legislatures, the 2010 election dug quite the hole for Democrats to dig out of in 2012. Health-carerepealing, apocalyptic rhetoric from the new Republican majority seemed to forecast stymied domestic policy progress and re-election-thwarting gridlock for President Obama.
This does not have to be the case. With smart education policy, President Obama can force the Republican hand and win a major victory both politically and for children across America.
Reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (whose most recent iteration was George Bush’s No Child Left Behind) with a set of strong education reforms has been a domestic policy priority of the president since passing health-care reform earlier this year. However, with an increasingly polarized House and Senate, moving forward on a major domestic policy item could prove exceedingly difficult.
Education policy, especially at the federal level, is made by moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans. The Republican freshman classof 2010 ran on strong anti-Obama and anti-federal government rhetoric that would make compromise, even on an issue with which they agree, unpalatable. Additionally, these new members replaced moderate Democrats that would have been less indebted to teachers’ unions and more likely to compromise on education reform issues. Thus, an expansion of the federal government’s role in education (which the more extreme Republicans will try to stop) to promote education reform (which the more extreme Democrats will try to stop) may have very few friends in its corner.
However, if President Obama pares down his “blueprint” for ESEA to some essential and broadly acceptable provisions, he will force Republicans to cooperate in a major domestic policy win for his administration. More specifically, the ESEA authorization needs to encourage that states:
1. Change the adequate yearly progress measurement from achievement of Proficiency levels to reflect a measure of growth. There are very few Americans that believe that a teacher who gets a 4th grade student from a kindergarten reading level to a 3rd grade reading level failed to make adequate yearly progress. Only the staunchest of the anti-testing crowd could possibly take issue with this.
2. Give low income families more choices in where they send their kids to school. Oprah and Waiting for “Superman” have brought the perils of residential assignment to the forefront of American consciousness. This doesn’t have to take the form of universal voucher programs or funding for for-profit education providers, but increasing funding for charter, tax credit, and means-tested voucher programs is smart policy, especially for urban schools, that almost all of us can agree on.
3. Tie some portion of teacher evaluation to student performance. Again, not 100 percent, maybe not even 50 percent, but some element of a teacher’s proficiency must be judged by how his or her students perform.
4. Focus efforts to turn around the lowest performing schools. By and large, Americans are pleased with the schools that their children attend, and the federal government does not need to interfere with them.
Americans do know, however, that there are many schools, clustered primarily in our nation’s inner cities, in which the problems have become so grave that individual districts or states cannot or will not do what is necessary. If the federal government is to intervene in a traditionally local issue, it is here that it should intervene.
Only extremists will take issue with any of the above provisions. Some might feel that they do not go far enough, but few will state that these are a step in the wrong direction.
Americans are hurting, see why, and want action. By pursuing a Vito Corleone strategy and making Republicans an offer that they cannot refuse, Democrats can quite easily (and accurately) paint those that don’t come along as obstructionists. If Republicans fall in line, it’s a huge feather in both Obama’s domestic policy and bipartisanship caps, and a huge win for children all across the country.
Michael McShane is a distinguished doctoral fellow in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas and co-author of the education chapter in the forthcoming publication The Obama Presidency: Change and Continuity.
Perspective, Pages 82 on 11/28/2010