President Obama’s address to schoolchildren this week was far from the insidious introduction to socialism that some conservatives feared. Instead, it was an honest entreaty for students to assume personal responsibility for their education.
“I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working,” Obama said. “But at the end of the day, none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities.”
The Obama administration has taken significant action, including an unprecedented $100 billion investment in education courtesy of the economic stimulus package. In a country with falling levels of educational attainment – in which high school reading and math scores have been stagnant since the 1970’s – the education reforms proposed by the administration have the potential to boost innovation. That’s good for both students and the country.
Currently, innovation in education is stifled by outdated state policies, which discourages a dynamic system influenced by data. A main thrust of the administration’s reform effort is Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion fund in the stimulus package that provides competitive grants to states that devise unique innovations in education. States are also ineligible for the money if they have laws that exclude student performance in teacher assessments.
Race to the Top is meant to encourage the adoption of a more fluid education system that tracks student achievement and allows schools to respond to new data and changing conditions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Ca.) has called a special session of the California legislature in order to take up reforms that would make the state eligible for the funding.
Race to the Top is meant to encourage the adoption of a more fluid education system that tracks student achievement and allows schools to respond to new data and changing conditions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Ca.) has called a special session of the California legislature in order to take up reforms that would make the state eligible for the funding.
If more states follow suit, then education might benefit from what Justice Louis Brandeis famously called the “laboratory of the states” creating a variety of approaches to achieving a common goal.
The other important reform that the administration is focused on is merit pay for teachers, which would compel more serious evaluations of teachers.
According to the New Teacher Project, in school districts that use binary evaluation ratings (satisfactory or unsatisfactory), more than 99 percent of teachers receive a satisfactory rating. In districts that have a wider array of rating options, 94 percent of teachers receive one of the top two ratings, while less than 1 percent are rated unsatisfactory.
That’s no way to discover effective methods or discard ineffective ones.
The administration’s plans are not a panacea for all that ails the American educational system. After all, the effects of the recession are still wreaking havoc with state education budgets.
Yet the proposed reforms will create an atmosphere in which new approaches can take root and actionable information can be gathered. This will lay some groundwork for students to follow through on the advice that the President gave them this week.
