District Administration - January 2009 - (Page 21)

Because it creates more controversy? How would such services be paid for? Well, it’s a distraction. In the last eight years you had this consensus around the country that education is very important, so Washington people were saying, “We need to have high standards, we need to help all our kids, we need to confront the achievement gap.” All of those things are important. But the issue is how. What would happen if there were no teacher unions? I think what would happen is what you see happening in so much of the American economy right now. You end up with a race to the bottom. Look at the numbers of people who are unemployed. Look at what is happening in terms of the middle class. There’s an old RAND study that showed that even in the absence of standards, kids did better in the places that had the most teacher union organizations. There was higher achievement. You have a vision of public schools as community centers that provide medical and other services. Is there work currently being done on this front? Some of it is done already now. We have Children Health Plus and we have other types of things, and so I’m saying let’s do it more efficiently. Some of it will cost more money, but some of it will be coordinated in a better way. And think about this: Every time you spend a dollar on early childhood education you save seven dollars later. So what if we did things in terms of early education, where we’re really helping to prepare kids? That’s going to help ensure that we get to a far better graduation rate. The evidence about this is huge. We just have to do it. Part of the reason why we launched the Innovation Fund is because we believe in bottom-up reform. We believe in shared responsibility, and we know if you actually trust the people who are in classrooms and you give them the support they need, you will see students achieve. The schools that are successful are schools that work together. So the Innovation Fund is one way you might work to put education on the forefront of issues in the country? “Every time you spend a dollar on early childhood education you save seven dollars later.” Will you lobby lawmakers to create a bill that promotes community schools? Yes. And it’s not a new idea; it’s a pretty old idea. It’s actually rooted in what churches do, or what settlement houses do. They basically have under one roof a lot of different types of services. But the point is that you think about a school as the center of a community, and then you coordinate services that governments are doing. You make them more robust, you make them more effective, you make them more efficient. I would argue that you don’t have some health services for children—you have the whole panoply of services, including preventive services. If you coordinate them, or put them under one roof, you’re going to help children with their social and their developmental needs—which are absolutely imperative in terms of them being ready to learn—but you’re also going to help ensure that parents come in to a school and feel like it is a welcoming place instead of a negative place. www.DistrictAdministration.com We’re going to lobby lawmakers to revamp the entire education law, and we hope that it’s not as narrowly drawn as it is right now. It should be focused on the whole child. You’ve been quoted as saying that the last eight years have been “a threat to the middle class and public education.” What will you do to ensure that President Obama puts education on the forefront of issues for the country? The Innovation Fund is one of those things. But we have an overarching agenda that says we believe in high standards, assessments are important, and we know that we have to reform NCLB, because it’s now essentially two words: testing and sanctions. What we’re saying in terms of the AFT Innovation Fund is, let’s build upon the experience and expertise of our members by giving them the financial and organizational resources so that they can create innovation, and then, whether it’s building on practices that others have done or doing something new, we distribute and disseminate those good practices. The Innovation Fund is a $1 million fund? Right now we put in $1 million. We’re working with other foundations to see if they will help us match this. We will start providing grants to local unions by the fall of 2009. How are the monies distributed? What criteria is the distribution based on? We need to have a country that once again believes that hard work will lead you to opportunity, whether it’s about the economy, our broken health care system, or reforming our education system so that all kids have the opportunity to dream their dreams—and to once and for all deal with this unacceptable achievement gap. We want to be partners with the president and Congress in helping to solve these problems and sharing that kind of responsibility. There are going to be three different types of grants. One is capacity building. We have to grow our teaching force—meaning, we know you are a better teacher with some experience under your belt than if you don’t have experience under your belt. So the question becomes, how do you grow qualified teachers? Are you born it? There are some people who believe all you need to do is find enough of those folks, recruit them, and if it January 2009 21 http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - January 2009

District Administration - January 2009
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Security
Facilities & Construction
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Conversations
Leadership Books
Research Center
District Web Site Essentials
The Second Annual X-Factor Student Achievement Grant
Social Studies for the 21st Century
Tech Disruptions
Professional Opinion
New Products
Product Focus
Understanding the Times

District Administration - January 2009