Many post-mortems about 2018 midterm elections are circulating. Everyone has an idea about why the Republicans lost the House. But at the risk of sounding arrogant, I have the real answer, and I have proof.
I have conducted hundreds of meetings in the 115th Congress with members, staff, and anyone seemingly with authority, to try to achieve three very fundamental education goals embraced in principle by the majority party and some in the minority.
The least controversial is the idea that infrastructure dollars, once moving as a package, should include incentives for rural communities to complete or expand their digital footprint. To get additional funds, schools and districts would be required to adopt innovative approaches to delivering education, even if the instructor lives outside the district, the state, or the country. Technology gives us access to expertise we often don’t have in our communities. By combining infrastructure with education, schools improve, people want to live there, business grows, and jobs become available. Instead, we are almost two full decades into the 20th century, yet are still using education methods quite literally from before cellphones were introduced.
This leads to the second idea, the notion that every member of Congress and their staff should be educated about the brave new world of 21st-century education. Quite at odds with the factory model, where we allocate resources based on seat time (how long a student is in school and in class) and students are expected to move in tandem, the new era of learning is individualized, personalized, and based on achieving competency. While most of this is a local responsibility, Congress can foster and expand the understanding of and appetite for educational transformation by changing the way money is allocated to schools, learning from current models, and helping students at all levels achieve as a result.
The final idea is a proposal that requires legislative action to create incentives for private-sector-funded education, workforce, and apprenticeship scholarships, which would expand the ability of students and workers to find the education that best meets their needs. America has 80 million adults without any postsecondary credential, and hundreds of businesses that don’t have skilled workers. Rather than ask Congress to allocate more funds to the same workforce and training programs that created this upside-down situation, let’s incentivize training and workforce programs by allowing funds to flow to programs that best meet the needs of business. Workers looking for a particular kind of work would be able to access scholarships from nonprofit intermediary organizations that raise those funds. The donations to such groups would be eligible for a tax credit. The idea became a bill (HR 5153) and the fight was on to get it passed.
Hundreds of the people who work on the Hill and whose job is presumably to find good ideas to address national challenges loved the idea. Hundreds of groups from many different sectors endorsed it. Heads of agencies and even senior staff in the White House applauded it. But few of the leaders in the House of Representatives would do anything tangible other than listen and nod their heads. Some suggested it was really up to the White House to push the issue (I am a political scientist by training, so the notion that the House would wait on the president for an idea best suited to the most democratic of our institutions seems preposterous).
In fact, over the past two years, in the wake of the Every Student Succeeds Act, whatever the issue (higher education, career, education innovation, education choice), the congressional leadership and staffs were always generous with their time. But when it came time for action, they seemed to be at a permanent rest stop. The recommendations abounded — get the chairman, get the subcommittee, go get the Senate first, get the House first, come back when we don’t have so much to do, come back when we have a lot and we can squeeze it in.
I realize by writing this it may be impossible to ever get a meeting again. I hope not. But here’s the deal.
The No. 2 issue in this election was education. Yet the Republican-led House of Representatives in the 115th Congress, which rode in on a major wave of change in 2016, was the most disinterested I’ve ever seen. This was contrary to what we expected when veteran education reform advocate Paul Ryan ascended to the speakership. It is contrary to what we experienced when the very pro-education reform Newt Gingrich led the House and ushered in D.C. school reform efforts, joined President Bill Clinton to embrace charter schools for all states, and demanded better education for our nation. The behavior of the 115th Congress was at odds with the focus John Boehner put on building up education and challenging mediocrity. And as the soon-to-be minority Republicans found out, it’s contrary to what really matters to people.
Meanwhile in the states, scores of great pro-opportunity and innovation candidates won their races for governor. The Center for Education Reform ranked governors on how much they were inclined to promote opportunities for families and students to find schools that best meet their needs, including support of robust charter school laws, scholarships for poor kids, transparency of data, and expanded power for teachers in all systems. We also scored them on their openness to innovation, which includes bringing in new approaches to learning, embracing personalized learning, online education, and promoting new ideas that can ensure the best in educational products and technology to get for our students to help them learn and access all the world can provide.
Some of these issues were the centerpiece of the races in Arizona, Florida, and Ohio. Loud protests against education opportunity were fanned by teachers’ unions (known as “red for ed,” which is now all but dead) still licking their wounds from the blow they received from the Supreme Court’s summer Janus v. AFSCME decision. They spent tens of millions of dollars to oppose innovation, but the voters saw through their rhetoric. Republican nominees Gov. Doug Ducey, Rep. Ron DeSantis, and Mike DeWine all won in Arizona, Florida, and Ohio despite the predictions and the pushback from the unions.
Pro-opportunity and innovation gubernatorial candidates carried the day so far in 13 states (mostly Republicans, but a sprinkling of Democrats), including Colorado, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Six big defeats included Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which unions will attribute to their muscle and might, but in actuality is about weak candidates. Red legislatures in the latter two will mute any actions to change reforms long underway in both.
Races for state superintendent netted a win for opportunity in California and Oklahoma, and the Arizona race at press time was too close to call.
Since the late 1980s, when all the governors were first called together by then-president George H.W. Bush, until today, education reform has been a critical aspect of state policy. When governors are strong and unwavering in their commitment, they succeed. When they play all sides, they fail, as do the people in their charge. For the past 30 years, the states have, as intended by our founders, been the laboratory for democracy, with educational change a central tenet of their recent efforts. That won’t change, regardless of who is in Congress.
But Congress has the unique ability to encourage or discourage state and local action with their simple imprimatur and nodding approval. The 115th Congress was passive on one of the most critical issues facing our country and they paid the price.
It’s a cautionary tale for the new House, and for those packing up to go home. Transformative changes in education must once again become a top priority of every state, and every member of Congress.
It’s possible. It’s necessary. Students deserve no less.
Jeanne Allen (@JeanneAllen) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is CEO and founder of the Center for Education Reform.
