District Administration - July 2008 - (Page 33)

Sen. Obama with an eighth grade class at Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts in Thornton, Colo. Theories of Disappearance CHESTER E. FINN JR., PRESI dent of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based education reform group, puts forth ﬁve reasons why education might be on the sidelines in this year’s presidential race. 1. ISSUES There are other issues on people’s minds this year, such as Iraq, the economy, health care and global warming. “Education may make it into the top 10, but it doesn’t make it into the top two or three with those strong rivals for public concern,” Finn says. 2. BURNOUT People may be weary and frustrated with how much talk there has been of education reform in previous elections and yet how little has actually been accomplished on that front—a kind of burnout phenomenon. any school the parent chooses, and that school-choice initiatives such as vouchers foster competition between schools. Obama’s “Zero to Five” early childhood education plan invests $10 billion per year (double the current federal money) for increased Head Start funding and for state grants to help ensure that all children have access to preschool and to aﬀordable and high-quality child care. McCain has not yet proposed any early childhood education program. Unlike McCain, Obama has been vocal about the need for schools to better serve 21st century learners, and one project he wants to undertake is the creation of 20 “innovation districts” throughout the country. His plan would have districts apply for grants to implement education reforms, and 20 would receive yearly appropriations of $75 million, which would then be viewed as models of educational innovation in other districts. The Efﬁcacy Question Even with the candidates’ education plans, there are some skeptics who argue that U.S. presidents and systemic K12 school reform just do not mix. “At the end of the day there’s not much the president can do about teaching and learning in American schools, unless there’s a fundamental realignment of American government,” says Finn. “That is to say, if we wanted an administration of education with educators employed by the federal administration of education, handed their books by the administration of education, trained by the administration of education, then maybe a president www.DistrictAdministration.com would make a diﬀerence in what is taught and learned in schools.” Such claims, however, might stem directly from what other scholars call an “inconsistent and shortsighted” record of federal education policy, despite 25 years of reform sparked by A Nation at Risk, examined in a new report from the Forum for Education and Democracy. The report, “Democracy at Risk,” argues that while many promising initiatives have been developed, long-term policies to take them to scale—through support for new organizational designs, investments in low-wealth schools and highly focused research and development—have been absent. Still others view education policy in more practical terms. “Education might not seem like a front burner issue right now,” says newly appointed AASA executive director Daniel A. Domenech, “but it’s not going away, and the next president will be forced to face these issues.” Lampkin rejects the notion that the president can’t do very much when it comes to schools. “If the next president said he is going to make improving schools or raising standards or ﬁxing the test a priority and spends every day for a period of time making sure we do it, and calls in the governors, that is impactful,” he says. “There is not a more forceful voice for change on the face of the Earth than when the U.S. president stands before the American people and says, ‘We need to do it.’ That’s what we need on this issue. We need ‘can do,’ not ‘can’t do.’” DA 3. STATUS QUO People may be weary of the talk about the need to reform schools that they don’t think are all that bad or in need of reforming. 4. BAD LINKAGES The candidates themselves may not have done a good job of drawing links between things like job loss, the state of the economy, and the quality of our K12 education system. Or maybe they don’t understand the links in the ﬁrst place. 5. NO EFFICACY Most tantalizingly, possibly people have ﬁgured out—and thus the pollsters and campaign strategists would have ﬁgured out in response—that education is no longer a winning issue for presidential candidates, because when push comes to shove, there really isn’t all that much a president can do about America’s schools. July 2008 33 http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July 2008

District Administration - July 2008
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Letters
News Update
Curriculum Update
Administrator Profile
Conversations
Getting Mobile
School Supplies on a Budget
The Silent Issue
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Products
Management Books
Speaking Out
Calendar of Events
Research Center

District Administration - July 2008