The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Will President Obama's School Reform Bring the Change Kids Need?
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
Will President Obama's School Reform Bring the Change Kids Need?
by Robert Maranto, Gary Ritter, and Sandra Stotsky
Department of Education Reform, University of Arkansas
IP-10-2008 • December 2008Executive Summary public. Without the objective measures of
Barack Obama aspires to be an education student learning that NCLB mandates, we
president, but what kind of education presi- cannot tell what works. Ignorance may be
dent will he be? As a candidate, Obama has bliss, but it also makes it impossible to copy
taken conflicting positions. Both the anti- what works, and equally impossible to offer
reform National Education Association and greater compensation to more effective teach-
the reformist Democrats for Education Re- ers. Without NCLB, schools will be reduced
form claim him as their own. An analysis of to sort of accountability that Enron made fa-
candidate Obama’s education platform re- mous: if administrators say their schools are
veals elements of the Good, the Bad, and the working well, the rest of us will just have to
Ugly. take their word for it.
The Good The Ugly
Obama provides praiseworthy symbolic Certain Obama promises seem designed not
leadership in urging parents to “turn off the to help children, but rather to provide pork
television set, and put the video games away, barrel spending for education insiders.
and instill a sense of excellence in our chil- These include the following:
dren.” The following Obama education
promises also give hope: • Forcing schools of education to seek ac-
creditation, even though there is no evidence
• Offering greater compensation to teach- it leads to better preparation of teachers.
ers who demonstrate greater effectiveness, or • Paying teachers more for increased train-
who serve in high-needs areas such as inner ing, whether or not it actually makes them
cities. better teachers.
• Seeking ways to expand the supply of • Expanding transitional bilingual educa-
teachers. tion rather than more effective English im-
• Replicating successful charter schools, mersion approaches.
while closing unsuccessful ones.
In short, President Obama should appoint a
The Bad Democratic reformer who embraces the
There are disturbing indications that an good, opposes the bad, and avoids the ugly,
Obama administration will water down No to serve as the nation’s next Secretary of Edu-
Child Left Behind, the law that forces schools cation.
to test their students and report results to the
Page 1Introduction prefer for schools to inculcate national pride
America has had a run of education presi- and respect for constitutional values, such as
dents, and Barack Obama aspires to be one. the separation of powers, electoral participa-
But what kind of education president will tion, federalism, limited government, and
Obama be? property rights. From the opposite side of
the spectrum, Leftist intellectuals (such as
As a candidate, Obama has taken conflicting Barack Obama’s old acquaintance Bill Ayers,
positions on education—some pro-reform, the radical professor who is now a prominent
some pro-status quo. Indeed, his positions leader in the American Educational Research
have been so diverse that both the National Association) want public schools to teach
Education Association and the De- economic equality, skepticism about hierar-
The crucial
dilemma for mocrats for Education Reform chy and tradition, and outright hostility to
Barack claim him as their own. capitalism. To a lesser degree, educators like
Obama, as University of Pennsylvania President Amy
for all Presi- But now the campaign is over, and Gutman also hold this view.
dents, is that it is time to govern. As a result,
public educa- President Obama will have to de- Third, as education historians like Jeff Mirel
tion has four cide between two conflicting priori- and David Labaree show, a key goal of pub-
different ties: the desire of parents to have lic schools since the Great Depression has
goals that the public schools educate their been to keep children out of trouble and off
often contra- children, and the desire of bureau- the job market. Cynically, one might say that
dict each crats and teachers to have guaran- schools function as subsidized daycare for
other. teed jobs regardless of how well many families. We are all familiar with the
they are educating other people's children (if community panic that arises when the
at all). Obama’s education policies and ap- schools suddenly close for a snow day or for
pointments should be emphatically aimed at a teacher conference, not because children
helping children. miss a crucial day of learning, but because
their parents don’t know what to do with
Schools at Cross Purposes them during working hours. And as one
The crucial dilemma for Barack Obama, as school superintendent we interviewed some
for all Presidents, is that public education has years back put it, “We can’t [raise academic
four different goals that often contradict each standards]. Crime would go up. Unemploy-
other. As a result, Obama will have to decide ment would go up. Parents would be un-
what goal should take priority. happy.”
First, public schools must teach children ba- Fourth, if the first three goals at least tangen-
sic skills such as reading and writing— tially address kids, the last one addresses the
something that alas, all too many schools fail importance of the public school system for
to do. Without basic skills, young people the grownups. Today, the K-12 public edu-
cannot compete in the U.S. economy, much cational-industrial complex employs well
less the global economy. over six million Americans, a ratio of one em-
ployee for every eight school children. If the
Second, public education inevitably teaches 1945 trend line continues, a one-to-one ratio
political values. From the Right, intellectuals will be reached by 2060. Those figures do not
such as Lynne Cheney and Chester E. Finn include the army of contractors and college
Page 2professors who make their living from certi- the status quo, and to make changes that
fying teachers, certifying schools, and from definitely will make some adults unhappy
mandatory but mostly ineffective profes- but potentially will improve the lot of many
sional development. students.
The job-creating function of schools is most Education Presidents Past
important in inner cities and many rural re- Recent presidents have lamented the under-
gions. In these low-income areas, the public performance of our nation’s schools, and
school system is often the single most impor- have embraced the primacy of academic
tant source of good jobs. Political scientist achievement. Most famously, President
Wilbur Rick wrote in Black Mayors and Schools Ronald Reagan highlighted the nation’s edu-
Politics that “the school pie feeds many fami- cational deficits in the 1983 Nation at Risk re-
lies, and slicing it is a major event in the local port. The first President Bush held an educa-
economy.” As a long-time Chicago resident, tion summit for all 50 governors (including
President-elect Obama knows this scene. In then-Governor Bill Clinton), which stimu-
big cities where middle class whites and lated a decade of state-level school
blacks long ago left the public schools, school reform. As President, Clinton’s Goals President
politics often pit middle-income African- 2000 law forced state governments Obama’s
Americans and whites—who see schools as for the first time to develop standards early choices
sources of jobs and contracts—against poor for what children should learn during will signal
African-Americans who want their kids to their 13 years in school. the extent to
learn in safety. Teachers unions, which fun- which he is
nel hundreds of millions of dollars into elec- Belying his current reputation as a willing to
toral politics, typically (and reasonably, since hardcore conservative, President admit we can
George W. Bush extended Clinton’s do better, to
their objective is to represent the teachers)
policies, in that the No Child Left Be- threaten the
favor the jobs approach to public education.
status quo,
At least implicitly, so do prominent public hind law forced states to develop tests
and to make
intellectuals like Stanford Education School based on state standards. Under
changes that
Dean Linda Darling Hammond, rumored to Bush’s approach, schools must report
definitely
be on the short list of President-elect test results broken down by race, spe-
will make
Obama’s Secretary of Education choices. cial education status, and poverty. A
some adults
school can be labeled as failing if sub-
unhappy but
These four goals of the public school system stantial numbers of students in any
potentially
often contradict one another. For example, a group fall behind. will improve
focus on high standards might also lead to a the lot of
short-term drop in the graduation rate. Most NCLB respects federalism in that the many stu-
importantly, a focus on children’s well-being law does not tell states how to im- dents.
and academic achievement might lead offi- prove their schools, so much as push
cials to consider firing bad teachers or abol- states taking federal funds to develop meas-
ishing well-entrenched education programs, ures of student learning and report those
thus destroying the job security that many measures to the public and to policy-makers.
adults have come to expect. These are tough The theory then is that state policymakers
decisions, and President Obama’s early and citizens can use that data to make sensi-
choices will signal the extent to which he is ble decisions about how (and whether) to
willing to admit we can do better, to threaten reform their public schools. In effect, NCLB
Page 3is about transparency. As noted below, too under NCLB, the stubborn gaps between
many public schools are no more transparent white and minority academic achievement
about student learning than Enron was about are beginning to narrow, though not by
profits and losses. In pushing public schools much.
to embrace more honest accounting systems,
NCLB is starting to change that reality. But Who Is the Education Obama?
Thus, the key question is whether President
The result is an increasing culture of account- Obama will continue the focus on academic
ability, with public school administrators achievement—even at the expense of job se-
asking not whether paperwork is done prop- curity for adults—or whether he will fall in
erly, but instead whether children can actu- line with traditional Democratic interest
ally read the report cards they are getting. groups that tend to oppose accountability.
As a superintendent from an affluent, well- Whether Obama mostly wants schools to fo-
regarded Pennsylvania school district said, cus on grownups or on student learning de-
“the biggest requirement of NCLB was to pends on to whom you listen, and ultimately,
report data by group. 80% of our to whom he will listen. There is a lot in
Every recent kids achieve well, but when we dis- President-elect Obama’s education platform,
president has aggregate data by poverty and race and some of it should draw cheers from
had one no- the data doesn’t look too good. . . . school reformers no matter their party.
table educa- We’re going to put more effort into
tional inno- teaching minority kids.”1 An analy- The Good
vation. For Let’s start with the good news. Every recent
sis of state accountability schemes
Barack
even before the enactment of NCLB president has had one notable educational
Obama, the
uncovered similar stories. A Flor- innovation. For Barack Obama, the reform of
reform of
ida policymaker in 2002 reported teacher compensation seems to fit the bill. To
teacher com-
pensation that the statewide accountability be sure, any sort of differentiated pay plan,
seems to fit program made it unacceptable for much less one that attempts to pay teachers
the bill. schools to tolerate poor perform- based on measured effectiveness, will bring
ance simply because of the compo- strong opposition from teachers unions, to
sition of the student body. In North Caro- whom Obama may well feel indebted.
lina, a teacher in 2001 similarly noted, “I Nonetheless, it is possible that a President
think people recognize you’ve got to make Obama will use his considerable political
sure that you put more time and resources capital and powers of persuasion to co-opt,
into some students than we may have done convince, or confront these groups and argue
in the past.”2 for common-sense reforms that may help stu-
dents, particularly students from disadvan-
State education officials confirm the belief taged backgrounds.
that NCLB has pressured local school dis-
tricts to improve. A 2004 survey of state edu- Indeed, Obama has already broken with the
cation officials from all over the country, teacher unions to some extent, by arguing
found a six-to-one margin agreeing that that “if teachers are teaching in rural schools,
NCLB would improve education. Two- where it’s harder to find teachers, or inner
thirds of officials agreed NCLB “motivated city schools, where it’s harder to teach, or if
districts to improve low-performing schools they’ve got particular specialties in math or
more quickly.”3 Recent studies show that science or certain other areas where it’s
Page 4harder to fill, I want to pay them more.”4 that’s fine. But I won’t do it without the ap-
The goal would be to enable inner-city proval of the teachers.”7 This statement sug-
schools to offer salaries above those of subur- gests that Obama supported merit pay only
ban counterparts, thus encouraging talented in the sense that he did not intend to over-
teachers to relocate to where they are needed ride local school board-union negotiations, a
most. meaningless concession, as one would not
expect a president to interfere with such ne-
Because this particular reform has not been gotiations in the first place.
attempted on a large scale, not enough strong
empirical evidence exists to show that higher Nonetheless, education reformers have
pay in inner cities will definitely improve speculated that Obama may have moderated
education. Nonetheless, the argument for his views over the course of the campaign,
differential teacher pay is sound and sits on a and that he may be more willing to consider
solid evidentiary base. As an initial matter, merit pay for teachers.8 Obama would do
there is solid evidence (and we all intuitively well to give serious consideration to such
recognize) that teacher quality makes a dif- support: a few districts across the country
ference. But particularly in math and sci- have implemented pay-for-performance
ence, the lowest-achieving students are often plans, and early evaluations suggest
...a few dis-
taught by teachers who by any standard are that such plans can increase student tricts across
barely qualified to do so. University of Penn- learning. If he intends to make merit the country
sylvania education professor Richard Inger- pay a priority, President Obama will have imple-
soll, among others, has found that many low- have to spend considerable time and mented
quality rural schools and inner-city schools attention on this issue to bring the pay-for-
that serve large numbers of minority stu- unions around, much in the same performance
dents end up hiring teachers who are un- way that President Clinton did ini- plans, and
trained in the subject matter they are as- tially for charter schools. The good early evalua-
signed to teach.5 It makes intuitive sense that news, of course, is that Obama would tions suggest
these students would be better served if their not have to act alone. In fact, he that such
schools were able to afford qualified math or could find moral and political sup- plans can
science teachers. On this issue, a Democratic port in Michelle Rhee, the reformer increase stu-
president and Congress may well come to- superintendent of the Washington, dent learn-
gether. D.C., public school system. Rhee is ing.
pushing ahead with an aggressive alternative
Obama has also hinted at a break with his pay plan that will offer salaries up to
party’s interest groups in contemplating that $130,000 to effective teachers. In short, a push
more effective teachers could be paid more.6 from the presidential “bully pulpit,” along
To be sure, Obama’s hint at support for merit with resources to further such plans, could
pay is almost entirely eviscerated by his make a real difference in how teachers are
January 2008 statement that “I don’t support compensated today, and likely result in a
merit pay for teachers as it’s commonly higher quality teaching force tomorrow.
understood,” and that “if teachers agree and
have some ownership in terms of how There is also good news regarding Obama’s
they’re being assessed, and they want to promises to bring more mid-career profes-
reward, in negotiations with the school sionals into teaching through scholarships
board, teachers who are doing a great job, and alternative certification programs.
Page 5Unlike many on the Left and Right, Obama write, as opposed to just keeping them in
realizes that expanding the pool of potential school or teaching them skepticism of
teachers is essential to improving the quality “Eurocentric” values (but not other values).
of those who actually do end up in the class- We are confident that an Obama administra-
room. If Obama breaks with traditional tion will choose wisely.
teacher certification programs, he could truly
become a post-ideological leader. Obama Such tough-mindedness also should inform
himself attended Hawaii’s Punahou School9 Obama’s support for expanding preschool.
and his daughters attend Chicago’s famous Though very expensive and an employment
Laboratory (“Lab”) School10—private schools agency for many grownups, preschool has
which do not as a rule hire certified teachers. some potential to improve schooling. Yet all
When asked whether she hires certified too many preschool programs have failed to
teachers, the Lab School’s personnel director raise the academic skills of disadvantaged
said, “We do not look at that; it students. To get it right, an Obama admini-
Obama also doesn’t make any difference.”11 A stration should borrow some conservative
wants to real push for alternative certifica- and neoliberal ideas, such as allowing state-
push states tion could build a new generation level experimentation, and show some ruth-
to close inef- of talented teachers, a cohort that lessness about closing programs that do not
fective char-
public schools desperately need. work. Ideally, the administration would also
ter schools,
allow parents a wide range of options, in-
and use their
While not in his official platform, cluding faith-based preschools (Obama has
cash flows to
expand more Senator Obama has called for help- pledged to continue President Bush’s faith-
successful ing ineffective teachers find alterna- based initiative). Otherwise, there simply
charters. tive careers. Of course, translating will not be a sufficient supply of quality pre-
this idea into action would take no school programs.
small effort, requiring a direct challenge to
the job protection and tenure provisions Finally, President Obama can have a sym-
strongly supported by teacher unions. As bolic impact on schooling. In highlighting
Senator, Obama has not demonstrated that the need for parents to “turn off the televi-
kind of toughness against his allies, but per- sion set, and put the video games away, and
haps as president he will. instill a sense of excellence in our children,”
Obama sent a powerful cultural message.
President-elect Obama promises more money Further, Obama’s very ascendance to power
for effective charter schools—autonomous could convince at least a few alienated Afri-
public schools that parents choose for their can-Americans their nation will embrace
children. Obama also wants to push states to anyone of talent and ambition. In and of it-
close ineffective charter schools, and use self, this influence should have some impact
their cash flows to expand more successful on reducing the longstanding black-white
charters. (Interestingly, this is the only part of test score gap by undermining the opposi-
the Obama education platform that calls for tional culture painting academic achieve-
ending ineffective programs rather than giv- ment as “acting white,” as legal scholar Stu-
ing them more money.) This is a good idea, art Buck’s forthcoming book of that name
and long overdue. Whether it is imple- describes.
mented will depend on whether “effective”
is defined as teaching students to read and
Page 6The Bad President-elect’s Domestic Policy Council
The worst part of Barack Obama’s platform Director, suggested in October that “not
deals with No Child Left Behind. To para- every child learns the same way, not every
phrase Winnie the Pooh, Obama is fully sup- child can be tested the same way, we can’t
portive of school accountability, except for ensure student achievement across the board
the accountability part.12 As Obama said to in the same way. So we have to use different
the National Education Association, “We kinds of assessments, portfolios for example,
know that high standards and accountability, and other forms of assessments.”16
in the abstract, are right.” He then continued,
“Don’t tell us that the only way to teach a The anti-NCLB argument has three prob-
child is to spend two months of a year pre- lems. First, the claim that children spend too
paring him to fill out a few bubbles in a stan- much time being tested has no basis in fact.
dardized test. We know that’s not true. You For example, in Arkansas public schools, the
didn’t devote your lives to testing. You de- most tested students—those in grades 5 and
voted it to teaching.” Elsewhere, Obama 7—spend only 1 percent of total instructional
said too much time is spent “preparing stu- time being tested, probably less time than
dents for tests that do not provide any valu- spent in class parties or on field trips.17
able, timely feedback on how to improve a
student’s learning. Creativity has been Second, without objective testing, we have
drained from classrooms as too many teach- no way to tell which schools are actually
ers are forced to teach fill-in-the-bubble teaching children, as opposed to merely
tests.”13 keeping them off the streets (one of the adult-
centered goals of schooling). As former Bush
Obama’s rhetoric here is drawn from the administration education official Michael
many broadsides against NCLB by the likes Petrilli put it:
of teachers unions, and from Leftists such as
Bill Ayers, Alfie Kohn, Jonathan Kozol, and Instead of those nasty standard- To para-
Monty Neil. While they never openly deny ized tests on which the perform- phrase Win-
that all children should learn to read, write, ance of students and schools can nie the Pooh,
and do basic math, NCLB opponents argue actually be tracked and compared Obama is
that objective testing makes children and in ways that parents, policymak- fully suppor-
teachers unhappy and pushes schools to ers, and educators can under- tive of school
spend too much time preparing for tests. In- stand, we’ll use individualized accountabil-
deed, in a New Hampshire speech, Obama portfolios, performances, and ity, except
said we should “help our teachers and prin- demonstrations which cannot be for the ac-
cipals develop assessments that teach our reliably scored or compared by countability
kids to become more than just good test- anybody.18 part.
takers,” and then praised New Hampshire
for developing “innovative assessments, in- It is difficult to imagine a portfolio scheme
cluding digital portfolios,” adding that that would be less time-consuming, less ex-
“there’s no reason we can’t start replicating pensive, and as transparent (i.e., as difficult
this all across the country.”14 Although the to game) as objective testing. Indeed, the two
Obama campaign clumsily tried to backtrack states that experimented with portfolios, Ver-
later,15 Obama’s education spokesperson mont and Kentucky, abandoned them for just
Melody Barnes, recently appointed as the these reasons.
Page 7In the end, a portfolio scheme would simply some students arrive at school with severe
erode objective accountability, thereby end- socio-economic disadvantages. Some kids,
ing the pressure for schools to improve. We particularly English as a Second Language
cannot have accountability without being (ESL) students, do in fact start school well
able to measure objectively which programs behind others. For that reason critics like
work and which fail. Without testing, we are Robert Linn urge that NCLB be revised to
reduced to sort of accountability that Enron include a “value added” component. In such
made famous: if administrators say their schemes, schools would be judged less based
schools are working well, other stakeholders on where their students end up than on how
will simply have to take their word for it. In much their skills improved. Obama has al-
such a postmodern era, successful programs ready signaled that he would support such
would not be “advantaged” over unsuccess- reforms, saying that “if a child comes in and
ful ones. This scenario would seem comfort- they’re two grades behind, and at the end of
ing to grownups who fail to teach kids, but the year, they’re only one year behind, that
not to the kids, their parents, and those school has done a good job. But right now,
working in schools that succeed. the way No Child Left Behind is structured,
that school would be deemed a failure. Now
Third, in a speech to the National Education that doesn’t make sense. So you’ve got to
Association, Obama received huge applause track the growth, the progress that that child
when he vehemently said, “But don’t come is making during the course of the year.”23
up with this law called No Child Left Behind,
and then leave the money behind.”19 Yet this Some critics from the Right oppose NCLB
clever slogan has little basis in fact: NCLB because they reject any role for the federal
raised federal funding for public government in education. In spite of these
Yet this schools by more than 50 percent. and other thoughtful criticisms of NCLB,
clever slogan As former Massachusetts Board of most education reformers agree that the
has little ba-
Education chairman James Peyser law’s increased data from objective assess-
sis in fact:
and economist Robert Costrell ments have encouraged state and local edu-
NCLB raised
show in the best financial analysis cation reform. Efforts to defang NCLB
federal fund-
ing for public of the matter, the extra funding cov- would make any meaningful school reform
schools by ers the extra costs, at least in the impossible, since no one could tell whether
more than 50 short term.20 And anyway, as a or not a reform succeeded. Congress and
percent. host of studies by Stanford Univer- President Obama would be wise to kill ef-
sity’s Eric Hanushek,21 Penn State forts to water down NCLB accountability,
University’s Steve Peterson,22 and others sug- and to embrace value-added measures in-
gest, it is not clear that more funding for fail- stead.
ing schools will tempt those schools to do a
better job teaching kids. Such findings, alas, The Ugly
directly contradict Obama’s claims that A final and technical set of Obama education
NCLB should provide more money rather plans seems more designed to protect or pro-
than more accountability for failing schools. vide jobs for grownups than to increase stu-
dent learning. For example, the Obama plat-
A more weighty argument against NCLB is form proposes that all schools of education
that it is unfair to judge schools merely be- must be accredited. In theory, it sounds de-
cause their students do badly, given that sirable for schools of education to be re-
Page 8viewed by outside authorities for quality there is surprisingly little evidence that certi-
control. But there is simply no body of sig- fied teachers, board-certified teachers or
nificant evidence that institutions certified by teachers with masters degrees do any better
the National Council for Accreditation of in the classroom.25 Such “professional train-
Teacher Education (NCATE) produce ing” merely serves to provide jobs to the
stronger teachers. In fact, research suggests adults who conduct such programs.
the opposite—that weaker, not stronger, in-
stitutions seek and receive NCATE accredita- Candidate Obama’s platform also proposes
tion. (Of course, if NCLB is amended to wa- support for transitional bilingual education,
ter down objective accountability, we will an increasingly discredited idea for
never have the data to gauge whether teach- ESL students. Research suggests that Essentially,
ers coming from NCATE-accredited institu- learning in English is typically more accreditation
tions are more or less effective than others.) effective than is learning in the native is a sneaky
tongue. Although bilingual educa- way for an
The reason is because NCATE’s standards tion has enjoyed enormous support ineffective
for accreditation emphasize pedagogy and by many well-intentioned educators, certification
process over content and subject knowledge. many change their minds after seeing body to ex-
pand its lu-
Education school faculty, not faculty in the the successful implementation of
crative do-
arts and sciences, do the peer review evalua- sheltered English immersion in Cali-
main and for
tion for accreditation, which is rather like fornia, Arizona, Massachusetts and
education
having the external consultant foxes advising elsewhere.26 For example, limited-
schools to
the internal foxes on how well they have de- English students in Oregon are
receive a
signed the lock on the chicken coop. funded at one and one-half times the
blessing that
amount for regular students. But
the public
When candidate Obama’s education advisers from 2005 to 2007, among 8th graders thinks signi-
wrote this provision, they seem to have been learning English, only 15 percent fies profes-
thinking more about pork for their friends passed the writing test and 36 percent sional qual-
than help for teachers and kids. Essentially, passed the math test—unacceptable ity.
accreditation is a sneaky way for an ineffec- results. A return to traditional bilin-
tive certification body to expand its lucrative gual programs will ensure that many English
domain and for education schools to receive language learners never learn enough Eng-
a blessing that the public thinks signifies pro- lish to handle advanced high school course-
fessional quality. work in mathematics and science, and on to
higher education. Despite their failings, bi-
Similarly, Obama has said that he wants to lingual programs have found support be-
“pay teachers more money across the board,” cause they guarantee school-based employ-
as well as for “getting more professional ment to adults from diverse immigrant com-
training,” such as “if they study to be na- munities who do not speak very much Eng-
tional board certified teachers,” or if they lish. So once again, President Obama will
“are willing to get additional advanced de- have to choose between programs that bene-
grees.”24 These proposals are good for fit children and programs that benefit adults.
adults, not children: Paying teachers more
across the board rewards bad teachers and Reforms Kids Need
provides them with no incentive to improve. Senator Obama was elected to fix an ailing
Moreover, as several studies have shown, economy and divisive foreign policy—not to
Page 9remake schooling. Unlike in the Bush ad- that any program expansion must be incre-
ministration, education reform will not be a mental, so as not to water down teacher qual-
first-year Obama priority. As a result, Obama ity.
will be tempted to simply farm out the edu-
cation issue to the interest group with the Fourth, Obama should resist programs that
most money: the teachers unions. Yet Presi- call for new entitlements for school employ-
dent-elect Obama’s background suggests an ees, such as his campaign’s bilingual educa-
interest in education. While candidate tion proposal, and should also eschew man-
Obama has never confronted parts of public dating new sources of income for traditional
education that do not work, his campaign institutions, such as the proposed require-
rhetoric and his very centrist presidential ments for NCATE accreditation. He should
transition so far suggest a pragmatic willing- instead support programs that demonstrate
ness to support what does work, at least in- increased learning for kids.
crementally.
Finally, candidate Obama declared that “we
President Obama should appoint a Secretary need to fix and improve our public schools,
of Education who will not weaken NCLB's not throw our hands up and walk away from
objective test-based accountability. Reforms them,” even while sending his own children
should focus on adding “value to private schools, the Lab School in Chicago,
President added” provisions to the law, to and now, Sidwell Friends in Washington.27
Obama make it fairer and more data- We respect Barack and Michelle Obama’s
should ap-
driven. decision to do what is best for their children.
point a Sec-
Even the best public schools are not the best
retary of
Second, Obama should propose for all kids. That said, this spring the Wash-
Education
who will not programs funding new compensa- ington D.C. opportunity scholarship pro-
weaken tion models for teachers, models gram comes up for reauthorization, and
NCLB's ob- taking into account market condi- many will accuse President Obama of rank
jective test- tions and teacher effectiveness. hypocrisy if he gives in to the demands of
based ac- Combined with efforts to bring special interests and denies school choice to
countability. more mid-career professionals into low-income children, while exercising school
teaching through scholarships and choice for his own children. Indeed some of
alternative certification programs, this re- the Obama girls’ classmates can attend
form could begin the hard work of recruiting Sidwell Friends only because of the program.
and retaining a top quality teaching force. As Wisconsin Democratic State Senator Polly
Obama will need to expend presidential Williams put it, “The president shouldn’t be
capital, but over the long term it will prove the only person who lives in public housing
worthwhile. who gets to send his kids to private
schools.”28
Third, Obama should indeed increase fund-
ing for charter schools that work, while In short, if President Obama shows the wis-
pushing states to close those which fail. The dom and courage to embrace the good, reject
mantra of doing what works, as shown the bad, and flee from the ugly, he has the
through objective evidence rather than politi- potential to become America’s greatest edu-
cal muscle, should also guide attempts to ex- cation president. That would be the change
pand preschool. Indeed, we have learned our schoolchildren need.
Page 10Notes (April 2008), http://www.uark.edu/ua/oep/
1 Robert Maranto, “Great Pain, Great Gain,” Hartford policy_briefs/2008/Time_Spent_on_Testing.pdf; Gary
Courant, July 26, 2005, p. A18. Ritter and Marc Holley, “Time for Testing,” Arkansas
2 Gary W. Ritter, John W. Murry, and Sean W. Mulvenon, Democrat Gazette, March 17, 2008,
“Overcoming the Obstacles: Implementing State Ac- http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2008/
countability Programs for Schools.” Paper presented at mar/17/guest-writers-time-testing-20080317/
the annual meeting of the Association for Public Policy 18 Michael J. Petrilli, Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Flypa-
Analysis and Management, Dallas, TX, November 8, per Web log, “Breaking news: Obama campaign wants to
2002. dump NCLB testing, use portfolios instead,” October 21,
3 Robert Maranto, with April G. Maranto, “Can NCLB 2008, http://www.edexcellence.net/
Increase Options for Low Income Students? Evidence flypaper/index.php/2008/10/breaking-news-obama-
from Across the States,” in Leaving No Child Left Behind? campaign-wants-to-dump-nclb-testing-use-portfolios-
Options for kids in failing schools, eds. Frederick Hess and instead/ (accessed November 29, 2008).
Chester E. Finn (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004), 19 “Barack Obama on No Child Left Behind,”
63-88. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4arDPdhE5k&feat
4 “Barack Obama’s Plan for Education Funding, Merit ure=related
Pay,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3QO- 20 James Peyser and Robert Costrell, “Exploring the Costs
JkDBU&feature=related of Accountability,” Education Next, vol. 4, no. 2 (Spring
5 Richard Ingersoll, “The problem of underqualified 2004): 23-29, http://media.hoover.org/
teachers in American secondary schools,” Educational documents/ednext20042_22.pdf
Researcher 28 (1999): 26-37. 21 See, for example Eric Hanushek, “Spending on
6 Domenico Montanaro, “Obama calls for merit pay,” Schools,” in A Primer on America’s Schools, ed. Terry M.
MSNBC, July 5, 2007, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com Moe, (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2001), 69-88.
/archive/2007/07/05/259258.aspx 22 Steve Peterson, “The Political Context of Students’
7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3QO- Educational Performance: Does Spending Matter?”
JkDBU&feature=related (working paper, 2008).
8 Michael J. Podgursky, and Matthew G. Springer, 23 “Barack Obama in Beaumont, TX,”
“Teacher performance pay: A review,” Journal of Policy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0L2GEBhd2w
Analysis and Management 26 (2007): 909-949. On the 24 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV3QO-
Teacher Advancement Program in particular, see Lewis JkDBU&feature=related
C. Solmon and Kimberly Firetag Agam, “Smaller Classes 25 Andrew J. Wayne and Peter Youngs, “Teacher Charac-
or Better Teachers,” in A Guide to Charter Schools: Re- teristics and Student Achievement Gains: A Review,”
search and Practical Advise for Educators, eds. Myron S. Review of Educational Research, Vol. 73, No. 1 (2003): 89-
Kayes and Robert Maranto, (Lanham: Rowman & Little- 122. See also Amy Ashley and Mike Kayes, “Where’s the
field Education, 2006), 51-64. Alternative? Identifying, Training, and Certifying,” in A
9 http://www.punahou.edu Guide to Charter Schools: Research and Practical Advise for
10 http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/ Educators, eds. Myron S. Kayes and Robert Maranto,
11 Telephone interview with Robert Maranto, July 9, 2008. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2006), 69-78.
12 Similarly, Winnie the Pooh knew all about babysitting, 26 Christine H. Rossell, “Learning a Second Language
except for the babysitting part. See Kathleen Weidner through the Second Language,” Educational Leadership
Zoehfeld, A. A. Milne, Robbin Cuddy, Roo's New Babysit- Vol. 62, No. 4 (Dec 2004-Jan 2005): 32-36; —,
ter, (New York: Random House Disney, 1999). “Dismantling Bilingual Education, Implementing English
13 Eleanor Chute, “Both Clinton and Obama attack No Immersion: the California Initiative,” (Boston: Boston
Child Left Behind Act,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 9, University, 2002), http://www.bu.edu/polisci/
2008, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08100/ people/faculty/rossell/papers/Dismantling
871524-298.stm BilingualEducationJuly2002.pdf; Valentina Bali, “‘Sink or
14 http://www.barackobama.com/2007/11/20/ Swim’: What Happened to California’s Bilingual Stu-
remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_34.php dents After Proposition 227?” State Politics and Policy
15 Michele McNeil, “Portfolio confusion and the educa- Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2001): 295-317.
tion advisors’ debate,” Education Week Campaign K-12 27 This is very unlike President Jimmy Carter and the late
blog, October 21, 2008, http://blogs.edweek.org/ Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who believed in leading
edweek/campaign-k-12/2008/10/ from the front and accordingly send their own children
obama_on_portfolios_does_he_or.html to Washington public schools in the 1970s.
16 This statement was made on the Diane Rehm radio 28 Clint Bolick, “Obama Gets ‘H’ for Hyprocisy,” Forbes
show on October 21, 2008, at about 22 minutes: online, December 1, 2008,
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/10/21.php#23427 http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/11/30/educati
17 University of Arkansas, Office for Education Policy on-obama-vouchers-oped-cx_cb_1201bolick.html
Policy Brief, “Time Spent on Testing,” Volume 5, Issue 3
Page 11Copyright ©2008, Independence Institute sues such as teacher pay, school accountabil-
ity, school finance, and racial integration in
INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE is a non-profit, schools have appeared in such journals as Edu-
non-partisan Colorado think tank. It is gov- cation Finance and Policy, the Review of Educa-
erned by a statewide board of trustees and tional Research, Education Next, Educational
holds a 501(c)(3) tax exemption from the IRS. Evaluation and Policy Analysis, the Journal of
Its public policy research focuses on economic Education Finance, the Georgetown Public Policy
growth, education reform, local government Review, Educational Leadership, Black Issues in
effectiveness, and Constitutional rights. Higher Education, the Journal of Research in Edu-
cation, the International Journal of Testing, and
JON CALDARA is President of the Independ- Education Week.
ence Institute.
SANDRA STOTSKY holds the 21st Century
DAVID KOPEL is Research Director of the Chair in Teacher Quality at the University of
Independence Institute. Arkansas and is Professor of Education Re-
form in the Department of Education Reform.
PAMELA BENIGNO is the Director of the From 2006 to 2008, she served as a member of
Education Policy Center. the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and
co-authored two task group reports, as well as
ROBERT MARANTO is the 21st Century the Panel’s final report. She formerly served
Chair in Leadership at the Department of as Senior Associate Commissioner at the Mas-
Education Reform at the University of Arkan- sachusetts Department of Education, where
sas, and previously taught political science at she directed the complete revision of the
Villanova University. With others, he has pro- state’s K-12 standards in reading, the English
duced seven books and more than 50 other language arts, mathematics, history, geogra-
scholarly publications on administrative re- phy, science, civic education, and instructional
form generally and education reform in par- technology, as well as the state’s teacher licen-
ticular. Titles include Beyond a Government of sure regulations and teacher tests. She is the
Strangers: How Career Executives and Political author of Losing Our Language (Encounter
Appointees Can Turn Conflict to Cooperation Books, 2002) and the editor of What’s At Stake
(Lexington 2005), A Guide to Charter Schools in the Standards Wars: A Primer for Education
(Rowman & Littlefield Education 2006), and Policy Makers (Peter Lang, 2002).
The Politically Correct University (AEI, forth-
coming 2009) He can be reached at 479-575- ADDITIONAL RESOURCES on education
3225, or at rmaranto@uark.edu. policy can be found at:
http://www.IndependenceInstitute.org/
GARY RITTER holds the 21st Century Chair
in Education Policy in the Department of NOTHING WRITTEN here is to be construed
Education Reform at the University of Arkan- as necessarily representing the views of the
sas. He has taught graduate courses in the Independence Institute or as an attempt to in-
areas of education policy, research methods, fluence any election or legislative action.
and program evaluation since 1996. He is the
Director and founder of the Office for Educa- PERMISSION TO REPRINT this paper in
tion Policy at the University of Arkansas, whole or in part is hereby granted provided
which has developed policy briefs, given testi- full credit is given to the Independence Insti-
mony, and served as a resource for education tute.
policymakers since 2003. His articles on is-
Page 1213952 Denver West Parkway • Suite 400 • Golden, Colorado 80401-3141 www.IndependenceInstitute.org • 303-279-6536 • 303-279-4176 fax
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