Common Core supporters should toast Indiana House Education Committee Chairman Robert Behning for standing up against Common Core opponents.
Robert Behning’s Good Move to Kibosh Common Core Opposition: Certainly those in the Hoosier State pushing to stop the implementation of Common Core reading and math standards are none too happy that state House Education Committee Chairman Robert Behning isn’t allowing a hearing on SB 193, which would do exactly that. One can even sympathize with their perspective that Behning should allow for the hearing, even if at the end, he decides to kill it altogether in one of the many maneuvers for which the legislature has become legendary. At the very least, Behning should convene some special hearing that allows Common Core foes to offer the little in the way of arguments against the standards and gives supporters an opportunity to offer thoughtful support (if not to allow a hearing on the bill itself); this is something he has already offered to do. And while Common Core opponents may lean on Gov. Mike Pence to demand Behning to hold a hearing, they would be better off chatting with House Speaker Brian Bosma instead.
Yet reformers and traditionalists supportive of Common Core should raise a glass to Behning for risking the ire of those Common Core foes, some of who will accuse him of supposedly doing the business of outsiders (the usual charge leveled against anyone attempting an overhaul of anything in the Hoosier State), while others will accuse of him of not embracing conservative values (which, as your editor pointed out yesterday, isn’t so). Such willingness to stand up to opposition to implementation of the standards, especially from fellow-travelers among movement conservatives and the Republican Party, is tough to do. Why? Because it means both deviating from what longtime allies think should be the proper stance on the idea of national standards (even if the states implementing them are doing so of their own volition and been preparing to do so for the past few years), as well as risking an electoral challenge. Behning’s certainly not the only state legislator standing up to Common Core foes; Alabama state Rep. Lesley Vance a majority of his colleagues on a subcommittee of the state’s lower house did the same yesterday in voting down a bill that would end Common Core implementation. But given that other colleagues in the state legislature, including his counterpart on the state senate’s education panel, Dennis Kruse, have gone along with the opposition on “pausing” (that is, essentially ending) implementation, Behning’s stance is still remarkable.
Not that Behning’s willingness to stand up for his principles is anything new. Along with former state higher education commissioner Stan Jones and his successor, Teresa Lubbers, Behning has been one of the leading advocates for systemic reform inside Indiana’s statehouse. After Republicans took control of the state lower house for a two-year period 2004, Behning managed to pass a series of measures, including the creation of one of the nation’s first dual-credit initiatives. For most of his career in the legislature, Behning championed at least one effort or another to expand school choice; this ultimately resulted in the launch of the nation’s largest school voucher program as well as the expansion of charter schools that became law two years ago. And he has done the hard work with little in the way of publicity, allowing other reformers such as even as state superintendent Tony Bennett take both the national spotlight and the barbs of traditionalists at all levels.
Expect Behning’s name to become better-known nationally, especially as movement conservatives and others opposed to Common Core focus on the role he is playing in opposing them. Also expect some of those foes to attempt to muster a primary challenge against the Indianapolis-based Republican in a primary next year the same way they along with traditionalists successfully ended Bennett’s tenure as the Hoosier State’s chief schools officer. Considering that Behning has strong popularity in his district, he’ll more than likely keep his seat. For that, Common Core supporters in the Beltway should give him more than a little praise.
Hechinger and GothamSchools Don’t Completely Get It Right on Union Spending: Dropout Nation has high praise for the series put together by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media and GothamSchools on the activities surrounding the American Federation of Teachers’ New York City local, the United Federation of Teachers. This follows up on Dropout Nation‘s own analyses of the local and its financial affairs earlier this year. Looking at the inner workings of AFT and National Education Association affiliates — including the divide between Baby Boomers and younger teachers in the rank-and-file — is the kind of coverage education reporters should be providing. Yet the breakdown of the AFT local’s spending provided by the two outlets in the series doesn’t give a full perspective on how it uses its money to defend its influence on education policy in the Big Apple and the Empire State.
Certainly the one thing that can be said about the AFT’s New York City affiliate is that it spends less on lobbying than its the New York State affiliate or its parent national union. But considering that the Empire State affiliate handles the bulk of the work of lobbying in Albany — and thus carries water for the locals such as UFT — this doesn’t necessarily mean much. More importantly, for the New York City affiliate, there are more-effective ways of wielding influence. The first starts with the dollars it devotes to so-called representational activities, which contrary to Hechinger’s and GothamSchools’ statement, isn’t necessarily all about “the bed and butter” work of defending their rank-and-file from problems with school leaders. As Hechinger and GothamSchools admitted, those representational activities included spending $1.7 million on television ads last year to oppose Bloomberg’s teacher quality overhauls (as well as those championed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo). Considering that the Empire State’s top legislators — including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — are based in the heart of the Big Apple, the commercials (along with ads placed in the city’s major newspapers) play an important part in reminding them that they need to do the union’s bidding.
Then there are the dollars the AFT local dole out to what are supposed to be like-minded nonprofit and activist groups. This includes the $44,200 handed over in 2011-2012 to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s New York State and Big Apple units; these dollars secure a longstanding (and, for the NAACP, embarrassing) alliance that has included the unsuccessful effort two years ago to stop Mayor Michael Bloomberg from allowing charters to share space with traditional district schools in often half-empty buildings. There’s also the $376,881 the affiliate handed to progressive outfit New York Communities for Change, which has also been a steadfast ally in the union’s efforts to oppose Bloomberg’s overall school reform effort. When one keeps in mind that the Big Apple AFT, along with its fellow locals and affiliates and the national union itself (along with the National Education Association) use those contributions to build alliances as well as burnish their questionable credentials as progressives supporting social progress, the contributions are as much a part of the political gamesmanship as the dollars spent on lobbying.
This is certainly a quibble from DN about a part of an otherwise-admirable and well-reported series. But this needs to be noted. Because reporters on the education beat must always keep in mind that AFT and NEA affiliate spending is often more about influence-protecting than about elevating the teaching profession on behalf of their members.
The Hope for Detroit: Check out Tom Vander Ark’s riff on Dropout Nation‘s commentary on how mayoral control of traditional districts isn’t always possible in cities such as Detroit, where both the district and the main city government are dysfunctional. Vander Ark points out how the Motor City is slowly and fitfully abandoning the traditional district model and moving towards the Hollywood Model of Education. There are some interesting lessons for reformers in other cities where the district and the city government have fallen apart.