Rethinking policies around seat-time requirements, class size, compensating teachers based on their educational credentials, the use of technology in the classroom, inequitable school financing, the over placement of students in special education—almost all of these potentially transformative productivity gains are primarily state and local issues that have to be grappled with.

These are tough issues. Rethinking the status quo, by definition, can be unsettling. But I know that these discussions will be taking place in the coming year in schools, in districts, in union headquarters, in statehouses, and the governor’s mansion. The alternative is to simply end up doing less with less. That is fundamentally unacceptable.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, proclaiming during yesterday’s American Enterprise Institute conference that the status quo in American public education has to change. Well, it needs more than that: A revolution, not an evolution.

Doling out the election cash.

Let’s just call the recently-passed Edujobs bill what it really is: A congressional Democrat plan to keep control of the federal legislative branch by subsidizing the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — and absolutely useless and unnecessary to boot. It really is that simple. As I pointed out in The American Spectator earlier this year, congressional Democrats — fearful of losing seats (and possibly, control) in both houses — were looking for a way to placate the NEA and AFT (whose $71 million in donations during the 2007-2008 election cycle makes them the single-biggest forces in campaign finance) and keep their money and bodies in the game.

As it has been pointed out over the past few months, there is almost no need for these subsidies. For one thing, the original estimates have turned out to be illusory as school districts such as New York City have figured out ways to stave off layoffs, either by cutting jobs in other areas of education (including school staffers represented by the Service Employees International Union and other unions), holding off scheduled teacher pay raises or cutting other areas of school district operations. For all the caterwauling by teachers unions, their allies and congressional leaders such as House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave “Walking Around Money” Obey, the subsidies were absolutely unnecessary. More importantly, given that the layoffs would only affect at best five percent of the 6.2 million people working in education — small potatoes compared to the wrenching layoffs within the private sector — school districts would have done just fine without the money.

Though the bill does benefit the NEA and the AFT, it’s difficult to discern how it will really help congressional Democrats. For one, the waves of dissatisfaction among voters have more to do with how the party and President Barack Obama have handled such issues as federal economic stimulus subsidies (that has done little), continued mismanagement of budget deficits (a continuation of Bush II-era mismanagement) and the passage of a healthcare reform bill no one outside of pharmaceutical giants, unions and “progressives” want. If congressional Democrats want to keep power (which they may still do based on recent polling in states such as Connecticut), the solution lies in pursuing a more fiscally-prudent set of budget policies, cutting federal spending, reducing taxes and taking on the long-term strains on economic growth — including deficits in Social Security and more-aggressive education reform.

Congressional Democrats also didn’t need to give any money to the NEA and AFT because the two don’t have any other options in the general election cycle. Although the two unions give plenty to Republicans at the state and local levels, they hardly give any money to Republicans in Congress. This means that the NEA and AFT don’t have many allies on the national level (even though both the unions and conservative and suburban elements within the GOP share a heated disdain for much of the Bush/Obama school reform agenda). Given the lack of allies and the fact that the NEA and AFT have other issues on which they share common ground with Democrats (the moribund card check legislation and healthcare reform), the two unions have little choice but to back congressional Democrats at all times.

What Edujobs represents is lost opportunity to further advance school reform. Teacher quality reforms such aren’t advanced by the subsidies because  school districts aren’t required to end Reverse Seniority (“last hired-first fired) layoffs and other seniority-based privileges in exchange for the money. There is no provision requiring districts and states to address their long-term fiscal problems, namely at least $600 billion in pension deficits and unfunded retired teacher health liabilities. There is no Race to the Top-like component that would reward states and districts for innovating how they handle human capital management issues. Education doesn’t begin to understand that the sector shouldn’t be treated different than any other during periods of economic dislocation.  Not one thing of value for children or for improving the abysmal quality of American public education.

Essentially, Edujobs has all the hallmarks of Tammany Hall dealmaking devoid of strategic cleverness or plain common sense.

“One of the big problem in this industry is the whole human capital chain… can be improved… A great teacher in a dysfunctional school or a great school in a dysfunctional district isn’t going to affect the change we need. We need to change the whole system.” — Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff, Joanne Weiss, on improving how education recruits, develops and deploys talent.

“Made in America still means something… [But] we need to educate every child so that we can maintain the quality of life we have.” — U.S. Trade Representative (and former Dallas Mayor) Ron Kirk at the National Urban League Conference’s business dinner.

“What does [high-quality education] mean at the end of the day? We need to do a real better job of explaining what a high-quality education should look like.” — Byron Garrett, CEO of National PTA, on empowering parents, during a panel discussion about innovation in charter schools.

“We have not just written off kids in special education, but by association, teachers in special education. It’s a travesty.” — Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality, discussing the low quality of teacher training at ed schools.

“States have been setting the bar artificially low, everywhere, for the past decade. This isn’t news… Standards aren’t the problem. Low standards are the problem.” — Derrell Bradford of New Jersey’s  E3 on the chatter about low cut scores in New York State.

“Parents can’t wait. They see pockets of educational excellence and ask why it can’t be everywhere—when their children have only one chance for an education.” – U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan before the National Urban League’s conference, on why old-school civil rights activists can’t keep offering their old paradigm for improving education.

Remember, read to your sons and daughters.

“We’re going to stop lying to children and lying to families [about curriculum quality]… We have to challenge the status quo on when schools are failing… We think it is unacceptable” — U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Common Core State Standards and overhauling failing schools at the Military Child Education Coalition’s annual conference, via Dropout Nation’s Twitter feed (go ahead and follow).

“What’s frustrating is that there is a real issue here demanding attention. The trade-off between flexibility and prescriptiveness in federal school turnaround policy is a complicated one without a lot of good answers.  Too much flexibility and districts and states take the easy way out and do nothing meaningful for students stuck in lousy schools. Too prescriptive and you get meaningless box-checking (as we may be seeing overall with the current dollop of school improvement funds), perverse consequences, or you stifle innovative approaches that might work if educators could try them.” – Andy Rotherham responding to Michael Winerip’s claptrap of an article on the consequences of federal education policy.

“We need to push school districts to frame summer school as a good thing, something extra — not a punishment. There is a cultural barrier that we have to overcome.” – Ron Fairchild of the National Summer Learning Association on the need for summer learning (and ultimately, for year-round schooling), in Time.

“But why are we more willing to overlook lackluster test scores in middle class schools?” Mike Petrilli on laggard middle class schools (traditional and charter).

“My hope is that many of them improve, but at the same time, we need to make sure the bar is high. I’ve got two children in the system, and I don’t want a ‘minimally effective teacher’ and I don’t think anyone else does, either.” — D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on her decision to dismiss 241 laggard teachers.

“Each year we visit the teachers at least twice – once in the beginning and ten again towards the end of the year. It’s a great opportunity to understand how our kids are progressing and to brainstorm areas of concern or ask questions. But the one thing that always surprised me is that no one from the school has ever asked us to review the teachers. Ever… I think the current model doesn’t give enough credit to our great teachers and doesn’t shine a bright enough light on the teachers that aren’t delivering the goods.” — Tech investor Bijan Sabat on the need to evaluate teachers.

“While you argue about Duncan and standardized testing and charters…teach little keisha, tyrone, twon how to read, ok?” — Nikolai Pizarro (@iwantwealth) on the complaining of defenders of traditional public education over school reform.

Check out Dropout Nation this week for news and commentary on the reform of American public education. And listen to this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast on recruiting, developing and rewarding more good-to-great teachers.

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I examine the debate between congressional Democrats, President Barack Obama and centrist Democrat school reformers over the edujobs bill. The proposed $10 billion school bailout bill will do little to advance school reform or stem (ever-dwindling) teacher and school employee bailout numbers. Instead of another bailout, President Obama, outgoing House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey and his fellow congressional Democrats should focus on building parent power and making families true decision-makers in education.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also, add the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

Gut check time.

As I have pointed out since the beginning of the year, the efforts by congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama to keep control of Congress may be the most-immediate problem for the school reform efforts being orchestrated by Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. As Republicans continue to gain momentum — and are likely to capture seats in Indiana, Arkansas and perhaps, even Connecticut — Democratic leaders will need all their activists on the ground to bring out the votes — especially the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the single-biggest donors in Democratic (and general election) politics. But NEA and AFT support won’t come without a price — or without conflict with centrist Democrats who are driving Race to the Top and other Obama initiatives.

This was exemplified yesterday when outgoing Rep. David Obey proposed to use $500 million in dollars slated for Race to the Top to fund a $10 billion package to stave off an ever-dwindling wave of teacher and school staff layoffs. School reformers such as the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Congressman Jared Polis and the Education Trust went on the warpath, wrangling support against Obey’s effort, while the NEA and AFT reminded other congressional Democrats that they better pay to play.

As Education Trust communications czar Amy Wilkins rightly points out, Obama and Duncan can’t afford to let Obey succeed — and not just because the administration will lose credibility among states and the school reform movement. The reality is that the Obama administration has little in the way of concrete achievements (at least those that don’t involve the controversial and still-likely-to get-partly-overturned health care reform plan). Education reform is one of those sparse achievements and anything that renders it a failure may lead to Obama going the way of Jimmy Carter in the re-election department.

Then there is the reality that this latest version of the education bailout plan (originally planned for $23 billion) is not even needed. A few months ago, it was assumed that as much as five percent of the 6.2 million teachers and school staffers would be laid off due to fiscal problems. Since then, as Mike Antonucci points out almost daily, those layoff numbers have dwindled further as school districts and states use furloughs, tighten belts and attempt to divert federal special education funding to keep teachers and staff on payrolls. That this comes after a previous $100 billion bailout (as part of the federal stimulus plan passed at the beginning of Obama’s term as president) — along with news that education spending hasn’t exactly been flatlined in the past decade — makes school districts and states look downright spendthrifty.

Obama and Duncan probably realize that ARRA II, as I call it, won’t force states to deal with the long-term causes of their fiscal woes: Pension deficits, overly generous benefits such as nearly-free healthcare for teachers, and the traditional system of compensating teachers, which has been costly to taxpayers and students alike. Even if ARRA II forced school districts to abandon the use of reverse seniority (or last hired-first fired) in layoff decisions, it wouldn’t mean much without the acquiescence of NEA and AFT locals, who oppose any change in the status quo.

But for the Democrats, other considerations matter. This includes bolstering the re-election prospects of vulnerable candidates and setting the table for Obama’s re-election effort two years beyond. For the Democrats to overcome the odds of a Republican victory in November, they need lots and lots of bodies. And money. The NEA and AFT offer plenty of that — including $66 million during the 2007-2008 election cycle alone — and far more campaigners on the ground than what school reformers can muster.

Which has always been the problem for the school reform movement. Sure, they have succeeded in winning over most of the policymakers within the Beltway and the nation’s statehouses. But the NEA and AFT have the advantage of strength in numbers. Until now, that intimidation power — the combination of teachers working the corridors of Congress and state capitals and the soft lobbying of parents in schoolhouses — is why the two unions have dominated education policy. Although teachers unions have fewer supporters and can no longer count on unquestioned support from Democrats, they can still whip up enough money and bodies to stave off the most-pathbreaking of reforms, and win over support for bailout schemes that benefit their rank-and-file.

School reformers need to pay attention to what is happening now and build stronger ties to grassroots advocates and parents on the ground; and challenge politicians opposed to school reform at the ballot box and in the hallways. Without them, Race to the Top will become crawl back to the past. The 1.3 million kids destined to drop out in the next year need more than that.

UPDATE (10:54 p.m., July 1): Proving my point, Obey rallied all but 15 Democrats to approve the Race to the Top cuts 239-182 [note: link still says vote not yet available). All but three Republican voted against it.

Sometimes schools and prisons seem the same thing. But they aren't. Let's keep our kids out of them.

As discussions of another K-12 bailout — much of it motivated by Democratic Party fears of congressional election losses — gets underway, there is plenty of questions as to whether America spends too much on education spending, is the money being spent too inefficiently and whether another bailout is needed anyway. This reprint of a Dropout Nation report written earlier this year offers another perspective on spending, especially in light of what is spent on the nation’s criminal justice system. To wit: Why do we spend $214 billion on criminal justice (and badly)? Because we spend $528 billion on schools (and atrociously):

An argument used by some in education, most recently by a writer in the Edurati Review, is that America spends far too much money on criminal justice — including prisons — at the expense of schools. And at first, it seems valid. From the vast numbers of young black, white and Latino dropouts landing in prison to the scandals within the juvenile justice system, it is clear that improving the educational destinies of students can make it less likely for them to land behind bars. Figuring out which crimes are truly crimes worth prison time (rape, for example) and which ones are consensual acts that hurt no one but the person (physically and emotionally) and her immediate family, would also help.

But do we actually spend too much on prisons at the expense of education. Here are a few

• Amount spent on operating and building prisons in fiscal year 2005-2006: $70 billion. Total amount on criminal justice, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics $214 billion.
• Amount spent on K-12 by districts, states and the federal government in the same fiscal year: $528.7 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
• Amount spent on prison construction in 2006: $2 billion.
• School construction spending that same year: $45 billion.

The reality isn’t so much that the America doesn’t spend too much on prisons, at least not per se; nor is it that the U.S spends too much on education. It’s that the country spends far too much on both inefficiently. This is especially true with the latter. Too much spending is caught up in a politically-driven system of teacher compensation that fails to reward high-performing teachers and pays laggards far too much. Defined-benefit pensions and unfunded retirement liabilities are sopping up much of the increases in K-12 spending. Younger teachers don’t reap the full rewards of their work until late in their careers; the high level of attrition in the teacher ranks before fifth year of service is far too high.

Given that three out of every 10 American children fail to graduate from high school, the costs of the system are far greater than the results. It’s both tragedy and travesty.

Essentially, criminal justice spending isn’t a problem. Nor is education spending a problem. Spending education funding efficiently for results is. We must do better by our children.

For the vast majority of us who work in sectors outside of education (and outside of the public sector), a few things are simple, brutal and clear. When businesses are going through periods of economic distress, positions are cut.  If your performance is below satisfactory, only charm and systemic apathy will keep you in the job. You won’t get a raise if the firm is losing money. Money from benefactors come with strings attached. No one gets excited about And your job isn’t likely to be protected because of your long tenure with an employer.

Education, unfortunately, is different. Teachers and school districts have gotten so used to decades of pay increases and expanding payrolls that the very thought of adjusting to economic reality.

When teachers such as Jane Jorgensen of the Elgin school district in Illinois complain that the world isn’t “freaking out” about the loss of as many as 300,000 education jobs this year, they fail to realize that 1) it is just the high end of the U.S. Department of Education’s estimate and 2) given that 6.2 million people are employed in education, a loss of 300,000 jobs pales in comparison to job losses in the private sector (and even some segment of the public sphere). As I have known in my own life, all job losses are a tragedy. But not every job is crucial to the life of a school. Considering that the quality of education — and the dropout crisis — hasn’t subsided despite a 50 percent increase in education payrolls in the past four decades, it is clear that there is some fat (and laggard, uncaring teachers) to trim.

When other educators such as Frank Orfei in Pelham, N.Y. , complain about the lack of pay raises and argue that they feel like they’ve been scapegoated, they seemingly forget that at least they have jobs. So many families — including the ones who attend the schools in which they work — have spent the past two years either adjusting to pay cuts, living on one income (because a parent lost a job) or subsisting on welfare and unemployment benefits. I have seen those families. In fact, I know some of those families. While some of them didn’t plan responsibly for these periods of financial adjustment, I know plenty who have — and still ended up struggling.

Most of the people I know who are in their jobs also didn’t get a raise; those of us who are fortunate to get one sit down, shut up, get to work and remain grateful for the income. The last thing any of us want to hear is complaints about having to make due without a raise when tough economic times demand that we all have to live within our means.

And you can only laugh when the Sherman Dorns of the world incessantly argue that requiring states to reform teacher layoff and dismissal policies in exchange for a $23 billion bailout — the second in two years — only guarantees that “thousands of new teacher careers die in the next year.” If  they can ignore the reality that such a string would actually force states and school systems to change the very reason why those careers will be ended — laws that force districts to lay off teachers based on reverse seniority (“or last hired-first fired”) rules instead of on quality of instruction — then there is little reasoning with them. They have been so used to taxpayers funding education to the tune of $528 billion without so much as requirements for engaging parents, measuring teacher quality, and improving curricula that they are intellectually obsolete.

Certainly education is important to the future of this country. We should invest as much as we can. But given that schools often spend as much as 50 percent of local property tax and state tax dollars, it cannot be insulated from recessionary periods. The fact that states and school districts are finally reckoning with the costs of decades of expensive compensation deals with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — which has resulted in teaching being the best-compensated profession in the public sector — means that teachers will have to adjust to a future in which performance pay, teacher evaluations and the end of tenure is a reality, not a nightmare.

This is the perfect time to restructure education spending so that the money being spent is efficiently used to improve the educational (and economic) destinies of our children and assure that they are all taught by the highest-quality teachers. It means ending reverse seniority layoffs. This means ending tenure. It must also include improving how teachers are compensated so that great instructors are rewarded for great work and the laggards leave the classroom in order to limit the damage on student learning. This means restructuring public school bureaucracies and procedures that have been far too wasteful for everyone involved and complicate the work teachers should do. We owe our children far more than delusions.

As I have opined numerous times here and elsewhere, one of Race to the Top’s biggest flaws is that it isn’t ambitious enough. There aren’t enough players in education competing for the $3.4 billion in remaining funding; it is only a nudge toward reform not a truly bold step; and it doesn’t take advantage of the clever competition approach that has succeeded so far in getting states to take on the reforms they should have been pursuing in the first place.

What are the five steps President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan should undertake in future rounds? Here are some thoughts:

• Allow school districts, charter school networks and grassroots organizations to compete in future rounds: Obama and Duncan have already said they want to allow districts to apply for Race to the Top funding. They should. Expanding the pool of Race to the Top applicants to include school districts—including reform-minded systems such as New York City and Los Angeles Unified—would force school districts to seriously change their own practices and restructure their relationships with teachers unions. Allowing districts, along with charter school organizations such as KIPP, grassroots activists and even PTAs, would also place pressure on states participating in the competition to embrace bolder reforms.
• Increase the rewards for embracing reform: Temporary funding isn’t enough. School districts must also gain additional rewards from participating and winning funding. One possible reward: Allowing winning districts to become enterprise zones of sorts, freeing them from state laws governing collective bargaining agreements and teacher dismissals.
• Parental engagement must factor into the equation: The fact that California’s Parent Trigger law, along with the expansion of charter schools, is the only tool for parental engagement emerging from Race to the Top is shameful. For the next round, the Department of Education should require applicants to enact policies and laws that place parents in their proper place as consumers and kings in education decision-making.
• Use Race funding to scale up alternative teacher training programs: Teach For America and other alternative training programs have proven they can do as good job — and particularly, with TFA, even better — than university schools of education. But there aren’t enough of them to improve the quality of school district teacher corps. Encouraging districts and charter schools to work more-closely with alternative programs (and also focus on boosting the number of men and minorities in the teaching ranks)
• Forget consensus: Contrary to proclamations from Jon Schnur and others, consensus among stakeholders is critical element of winning Race to the Top funding. It shouldn’t be. True leadership often involves breaking with those groups that refuse to move away from a crippling status quo. More importantly, school districts and state education leaders must take a more-assertive stance in their relationships with teachers unions, revamping an oft-servile relationship that yields little for students, schools and even individual teachers. Rewarding states such as Florida for taking aggressive reform measures — even if the state needs work on other elements of its application — is crucial to making Race to the Top a truly bold reform measure.

At this moment, Race to the Top is more of a nudge toward school reform that a bold leap. Considering the dropout crisis — and that 1.2 million children drop out every year into poverty and prison — nudges aren’t enough.

As U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan has taken on one of the nation’s most-pressing challenges: Improving the quality of public education — especially for the poorest students. And so far, through the Race to the Top effort and the proposed revamp of the No Child Left Behind Act, he has (imperfectly) forced many Americans to finally pay attention to the reasons why the overhauls are needed.

In this video excerpt from his speech earlier this year, the former Chicago Public Schools chief executive offers another reason why reform is so important: Fulfilling the dream of the Civil Rights Movement to assure that all children have equal opportunity to a high-quality education. Listen, think, consider, then take action.

Also, read my report in The American Spectator on how Duncan’s efforts are also complicating the political choices (and career) of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who must now decide whether to support or veto a teacher quality reform (and tenure elimination) measure.