OUR 21st CENTURY EDUCATION FUTURES: THE WINNING the FUTURE FUNDAMENTAL INGREDIENT! (We're In It to Win It!)

(Just Follow the Easy Step by Step Directions)

EDUCATION 101: RACE to the TOP (In It, to Win It!)

State of the Union mystery: What do Obama's Race to the Top plans mean?

Obama called education key to 'winning the future' and wants to replace No Child Left Behind with a plan based on his Race to the Top initiative. But that left some experts scratching their heads.

President Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 25. In his speech, he challenged Congress to invest in new research and education to meet 'our generation's Sputnik moment.' He proposed replacing No Child Left Behind, which is due for an overhaul, with a plan modeled after his Race to the Top program.
(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

By Amanda Paulson, Staff writer
posted January 26, 2011 at 1:43 pm EST

Education held a prominent place in President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, as he called for a re-commitment to "investing in better research and education" to meet “our generation’s Sputnik moment.”

Obama declared, "To win the future ... we also have to win the race to educate our kids." His words deliberately echoed his administration's Race to the Top program, even as he sounded some familiar themes, including the responsibility of parents and communities, the need for higher expectations in schools, and the importance of excellent teachers.

And he also put forth a few more specific proposals:

• Prepare 100,000 more science, technology, engineering, and math teachers by the end of the decade.
• Make permanent the tuition tax credit – worth $10,000 for four years of college – and expand the Pell Grant program.
• Replace No Child Left Behind with a new, more flexible law, that he said should be modeled after his competitive Race to the Top grant program.

IN PICTURES: Back to school 2010

That last point had a few education experts scratching their heads, since Race to the Top is a totally different animal from the broader Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the formal name for No Child Left Behind. The ESEA is the means by which the federal government delivers most of its money to schools and states – more than $100 billion, mostly determined by certain formulas, compared with the $4 billion of competitive grants that made up Race to the Top.

“He’s putting his chips on something that has limited usefulness, but it’s not a broad usefulness, and we don’t even know yet how well states will spend the money from Race to the Top,” says Jack Jennings, executive director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, who otherwise liked the education themes Obama sounded in his speech. “With No Child Left Behind, he should have talked about [the need for] broader reforms and improvements and raising standards, rather than making the theme of competitiveness the main thing.”

Race to the Top was widely seen as spurring big legislative changes in states, particularly around more accountability for teachers, as they vied for the pools of money. But it was also criticized by many who felt the priorities it emphasized were wrong, were disappointed in the selection of winners, or felt that a competition – that by definition left many states and districts out of the grants – was the wrong way to go.

“I think he’s trying to say Race to the Top … is the way to get consensus between Republicans and Democrats for the reauthorization of the ESEA, and I don’t think it will play out that way,” says Grover “Russ” Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center of Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.

IN PICTURES: Inside the State of the Union

Mr. Whitehurst also says he would have liked to have seen a more coherent, comprehensive education agenda laid out rather than a few pet proposals, and wonders what the federal role will be in goals like increasing the numbers of math and science teachers.

“The devil will be in the details here, and we’ll need to see them in the budget proposal,” he says.

Still, many education reformers were gratified to see education accorded such a prominent place in the speech and in Obama’s agenda, particularly at a time of economic hardship.

“The themes were clichéd, but they were good clichés,” says Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, who says he’s happy that Obama continued to emphasize the role of parents, the need for better teachers, and the need for funding to be attached to school performance.

“If we take these steps – if we raise expectations for every child, and give them the best possible chance at an education, from the day they’re born until the last job they take – we will reach the goal I set two years ago: by the end of the decade, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world,” Obama said.

“These were strongly phrased sentiments, and something that would have been startling to hear a national Democrat say even four or five years ago,” says Mr. Hess. “Even as we’ve been wrestling with foreign challenges and economic difficulties, to his credit, he and his administration have continually tried to put education forward."

Do YOU know as much about BLOGGING as a 2nd GRADER?

What is... What Will Be Obsolete...in Second Grade?

 Permanent link

Cross posted to Langwitches Blog

At the beginning of most calendar years, especially at the beginning of a new decade, century or millennium, we tend to take a closer look at our past and future than perhaps at other times. In the past few weeks I came across the following two articles: You're Out: 20 Things that became Obsolete this Decade by the Huffington Post and Things that Babies born in 2011 will Never Knowby Money Talks News are listing books, travel agents, video tapes, cassettes, watches, CDs and other items that will have or will become obsolete.

The above mentioned articles came to mind, as I was in one of our second grade classrooms getting ready to talk to 7 & 8 year olds about being promoted from merely commenting on their classroom blog to co-authoring a weekly blog post to document their learning and to be able to share it with their parents. Their classroom teacher and I had discussed that students would receive a weekly "Job Assignment" as the "Math Blogger","Science Blogger", etc. and that these jobs would rotate among all students just as the other class job responsibilities.

As I was in their classroom waiting for the students to finish a previous activity, I was looking at their prominent bulletin board displaying students and their corresponding class job.

1. Morning Opening Leader
2. Teacher's Helper
3. Pencil Sharpener
4. Line Leader
5. Door Holder
6. Line Monitor
7. Paper Collector
8. Paper Passer
9. Board Cleaner
10. Book Organizer

The teacher wanted to keep the list of jobs to ten, one for each student in the class. The class started with a discussion about which current jobs they c(sh)ould be eliminated based on necessity and importance within the classroom community. Most students seemed to agree that the "Book Organizer" and "Pencil Sharpener" could be eliminated. I threw them a curve ball by asking them:

What classroom jobs could possibly not exist anymore in 50 years? What kind of classroom jobs would simply NOT exist anymore when their grandchildren would be going to school? We looked at each job title individually:

1. Morning Opening Leader- Could still be around.
2. Teacher's Helper- Could still be around.
3. Pencil Sharpener- I held up my iPad and my stylus and they immediately made the connection. Then I showed them how I use the NoteTaker HD app to take notes and how I could switch between different colored pencils as well as their thickness. They agreed that I was not in need to sharpen pencils anymore.
4. Line Leader-Could still be around, IF kids still were going to a physical school every day to learn. I reminded them of our Skype calls and how we could have class with children who lived in different cities, states, countries or continents. There would be no need for a line leader.
5. Door Holder- Virtual classrooms would not have a door anymore that needed to be held open.
6. Line Monitor- No students would be lining up in a virtual classroom to walk one behind the other to the lunchroom, resource or library...no monitor needed.
7. Paper Collector- I pulled my iPad out again and showed them how I could simply e-mail or share my notes with the teacher and she could do the same. We imagined how every student in 50 years would have some sort of device that allowed their teacher to simply have access to their work without the work having to be "collected"
8. Paper Passer- Passing out paper would also be obsolete, since teachers could share any "papers" or assignments via their device with students.
9. Board Cleaner- One click... board is wiped clean
10. Book Organizer- I showed the class my iBook and Kindle app and how I access any book on my shelf. Close the book...and it is "neatly" stored and even remembers the last page I read.

  

Take a look at the new bulletin board, that their teacher created for her class the following day. Since her second grade is not a 1:1 iPad class, nor holds virtual class for her students, some of the original jobs are [still] valuable and necessary in their classroom. The new added jobs are:

1. Science Blogger
2. Spelling Blogger
3. Reading Blogger
4. Writing Blogger
5. Math Blogger

Their teacher created a "template" blog draft with an outline of a format including the different subject areas. The bloggers of the week will be writing daily in the draft version to document and reflect on their lessons and their learning in different subjects. They will collaboratively revise and edit the draft as a class before publishing and sharing the post. For me, this "blogger" job describes beautifully (at an appropriate developmental stage of a second grader), one of the roles to develop empowered learners that Alan November lists as "Official Scribe". I am looking forward to seeing their progress as they get comfortable with their new class job as bloggers, practicing online writing, documenting, reflecting on their learning, sharing, collaborating and so much more...

Adapted from Alan November (pp.188-193), Curriculum 21 (ASCD, 2010) by Heidi Hayes Jacobs.

What are some of the classroom jobs that are becoming obsolete in your classroom? What jobs are replacing the old ones? Please share!

Why Blog?

Web 2.0 | Feature

Can Blogging Make a Difference?

• By Denise Harrison
• 01/12/11

When Michigan State University doctoral student Todd Ide needed a research topic for a large-scale study required for his Ph.D., he looked at the classes he was teaching in his role as a graduate assistant. He wondered if there was a meaningful way to incorporate Web 2.0 into his curriculum for "Reading and Responding to Children's Literature." He reviewed current literature about blogging in education and saw an opportunity to further the research.

Formal studies about incorporating blogs into curricula were minimal, and what was out there was more anecdotal in nature, said Ide. "Most other studies reflected what the researcher's experience was and what they believed the students took from the experience," said Ide. "What I found lacking was research that examined blogging's effectiveness from the student perspective. There was little discussion of student perceptions concerning the value of blogging as an activity or whether the students believed blogging impacted their learning."

Ide began with a pilot study in 2009, which sought to answer three main questions:

• Does participating in a blog help reinforce learning that is done in the classroom by extending these conversations outside the confines of class hours?
• Do students believe that participating in a blog was valuable to their learning and understanding of key course concepts?
• Do students view the blog as a positive addition to their course learning or as another obstacle or requirement to be completed?

Another goal was to offer insights to instructors as to how to incorporate blogging in a way that is beneficial to students. "Most educators use technology for administrative tasks rather than instruction because they don't feel prepared and aren't getting the technical support needed. The results of the study, I believed, could help suggest best practices for using blogs as learning tools."

Nature of the Blog
While there are certainly plenty of other Web 2.0 communications media from which he could have chosen, Ide decided to study blogging because it combines solitary thought and social interaction to engage students and reinforce learning. The theory is that blogging increases collaboration, helps students transform and refine their ideas owing to the reflective and interactive nature, and improves critical thinking. Blogging disrupts and transforms, said Ide. In addition, blogs, these days, take very little time for a teacher to set up. "The ease of blogging with new tools such as Blogger and Wordpress and the fact they are hosted and are free to use, also make it easier to get started," said Ide.

Another reason Ide chose blogs as the topic of his research is that blog posts are accessible to a large global audience. According to Ide, blog search company Technorati reported more than 133 million blogs in existence, and there are currently 346 million people globally reading the 900,000 blog entries that are posted every 24 hours.

"The numbers are not consistent," he said, "but it's explosive, and it's trending vertically. This means that blogging allows students to publish their thoughts and ideas in a public venue that potentially has a worldwide audience. This public exposure should lead to students being even more reflective and thoughtful about their posts and comments, because anyone and everyone around the world can view what they write."

To Find Out
Eight out of 25 students in Ide's "Reading and Responding to Children's Literature" class volunteered to participate in the study. Ide set up the blog before the semester began. "We used Blogger mainly because it's free and fairly intuitive when learning how to use it," he said. "Students were given author access so they could create posts and comments."

He began the semester by sharing articles about what constitutes a quality blog post to give students a benchmark for achievement and to take the guesswork out of what is expected. "We also discuss what a 'substantive' post looks like mainly to avoid the 'Here's a great Web site' or 'yes, I agree' comments that are really not helpful in furthering the dialogue," he said. Ide also warned them that owing to the nature of the Internet, once a blog post is out there, it's there forever. "I wanted to make sure they are thinking through their arguments to put them in as good a light as possible," he said.

All students were required to post or comment a minimum of five times during the course. Two posts were assignments. In one, for example, Ide posted a link to a video and asked the students to watch that video and respond. Another assigned post was to gauge their reaction to a particular reading. The three other posts or comments were to be of the students' own choosing. "They were free to extend the discussion of topics covered in class, respond to the readings, ask questions, pose ideas about course themes, or to bring up material that they encountered elsewhere," said Ide. "The only requirement was that these posts be substantial in nature and that they needed to somehow tie into the course theories."

Ide mostly stayed out of the blog. "I tended not to comment," he said. "I wanted this to be a conversation they are having: engaging in the course material and thinking about children's literature. I am afraid if I am involved it will be seen as 'word from on high' and it might shut down conversation if my opinion is different from somebody else's."

One example of how blogging was an integral part of the coursework was a discussion about fact versus fiction regarding a piece of United States history. "We reviewed an article about Rosa Parks," Ide explained, "which looked at what really happened and debunks a lot of the myths. So, for instance, we talked about how she was not just a tired woman who didn't want to move to the back of the bus because her feet hurt. She was an active member of the civil rights movement, and that the act was planned, not spur of the moment as the myth would have it. The act was part of a very well thought-out strategy to push the issue into the public domain and have the public debate it." Many students did not know that, said Ide, and only knew the storybook version of this part of U.S. history. "This encouraged them to find other resources and write about their findings on the blog," said Ide.

Another example of blog participation was when students argued about the appropriateness of some of the books read in class. "One student's post was called 'How The Book Thief and The Hunger Games ruined my spring break' because he hated the downness of the books," said Ide. "That post sparked a good conversation of what is and isn't appropriate reading to offer youth and what themes these books offer young readers that are beneficial."

Participation in this online activity represented 10 percent of the students' grades. Extra credit was offered to the students for greater participation in the form of one percentage point added to the final grade.

Eight separate interviews were conducted over the course of two weeks. "The interviews were conducted toward the end of the semester so that it diminished fear in terms of how their responses might affect their grades," said Ide.

Prior to the start of each interview, students were told Ide was seeking to examine whether or not blogs and blogging improves student learning and engagement in the course. Each interview, which was digitally recorded and transcribed, lasted between 45 minutes and an hour, and the participants were asked a set series of questions. Follow-up questions were asked if Ide felt the need to clarify or further probe the subject's responses.

Ide interviewed them about their experience and their perceptions, probing their own understanding of how they learned, and what they did or didn't get from the activity. The transcripts were then coded for analysis using HyperResearch 2.8 qualitative analysis software.

Positive Results
Students reported positive results, with benefits such as "providing an outlet for thinking about things we talked about in class." Students began almost immediately as a result to make more interesting observations online than in class or in papers. In collaboration with peers they extended the analysis beyond the obvious, building arguments carefully yet succinctly, often by synthesizing the postings preceding theirs. "They made a real attempt to communicate something about which they felt strongly," said Ide.

Other positive results included:

• The class was only held once a week, and blogging proved to be effective for extending the discussion during the days in between;
• When a student encountered something interesting pertaining to the subject, he or she didn't have to wait an entire week to share that information with the rest of the class;
• Blogging also provided a way for students reluctant to share in a classroom setting to find their voices and express themselves in a less intimidating setting. One student thought it was "cool that she was interested enough in the subject to post about it";
• The blogging aspect of the class helped some students overcome a sense of isolation;
• The blogging helped create more intimacy with fellow students, leading to a greater sense of community;
• The exposure of their posts to meaningful audiences, including other students, and a potential global audience, encouraged careful reflection and articulation of the subject;
• Blogging helped students direct their own learning;
• Blogging increased the sense of engagement in the course material, providing the scaffolding necessary to support student learning.

Challenges of Incorporating Blogs into Curricula
"While the students reported positive experiences with blogging overall, that's not to say this technology is without its problems," said Ide. "Some reported that at times, they responded for the sake of responding rather than processing the information and learning," said Ide. "They posted fast and did it because it was an obligation. Another student said that, sometimes, her schedule made it difficult to focus. If her attention was needed elsewhere, she would just read as quickly as possible to find something she could comment on to fulfill the requirements. Two others shared similar experiences."

The results also seemed to confirm perceptions reported in earlier studies, which indicated that subjects did not perceive a connection between classes and blogging.

"All the respondents in this mini study indicated they would have liked a more explicit connection between course content and the activity of blogging," said ide. "They needed the connection to be made more clear and maintained during the course of the semester in order to understand why we were doing it and encourage them to continue to make the types of connections necessary to make the activity meaningful."

The Study Continues
This last year, Ide continued the study with a larger section with a larger pool of 40 students and a larger number of required posts and comments, and he was able to incorporate the lessons learned in the pilot study.

"Clearly the issue of how to get students engaged in the activity without simply doing it because it's a requirement [was a challenge to be addressed]," said Ide. "And regarding the blog-class separation, the students were right. So I needed to change the way we use blogging in class."

In direct response to this mini study, said Ide, he incorporated new ways of using the blog during lessons. "I call it the Blog All Stars. I select two or three posts that were very good and well thought-out and I explain to the class why these are great examples. I ask the poster to read them, then I open up the floor and ask if there are other things on the blog that people want to talk about."

The second batch of students were also better able to make the connections because Ide explained early in the semester how everything that goes on the blog needs to be connected to course content, and he offered suggestions. "During class, I might say, 'This is a good topic, and if you wanted to write a blog entry about it, it would work well.' I also point out areas that might need more explanation or research, and a lot of times students do look up the extra info and post about it."

Ide said his research confirmed what earlier studies found, that blogging "combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction by actively promoting the development of learning communities." His study indicates that this is true from the student perspective as well.

"Blogging does go a long way toward helping students be autonomous, creative, helpful, and provocative," he said, "by providing them with the type of environment that allows students to direct their own learning in a manner that transcends the existing curriculum."

Blogging helps blur the line between formal and informal learning, he said, and the blogging activities in his course have real world implications too.

"Blogs and wikis and podcasts are real-world stuff," said Ide. "In terms of blogs, look at things like Slate Magazine, which is basically a political blog, and many other blogs and Web sites have stepped into the mainstream in terms of journalism and news reporting. Students can get real world experience doing this."

In fact, Ide said, advertising majors have come to him and reported that while they were on job interviews, they were asked specifically about their blogging experience. "The ad agency is only interested in hiring students who have experience in social media because that was a weakness in their agency. They need people who are able to do that, and we are providing that experience."

About the Author

Denise Harrison is a freelance writer and editor specializing in technology, specifically in audiovisual and presentation. She also works as a consultant for Second Life projects and is involved with nonprofits and education within the 3D realm. She can be reached here. 

Pontiac Promise DELIVERS!

Pontiac Promise
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/12/09/news/local_news/doc4d018a9acd6d9088283277.txt?viewmode=fullstory

Two small things that should always Inform our Understanding (21st Century Endgame Foundations)

Digital Media and Literacy: A Plan of Action

http://www.knightcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Digital_and_Media_Literacy_A_Plan_of_Action.pdf

Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age

http://www.knightcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Informing_Communities_Sustaining_Democracy_in_the_Digital_Age.pdf

Progress on: Building a Grad Nation (Report)

READ THE REPORT http://civicenterprises.net/pdfs/gradnation.pdf


Grad nation Guidebook http://www.americaspromise.org/gradnation

Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010

School Dropout Rates Are Dropping, But Still No Cause For Celebration

By Andrew J. Rotherham

High school graduation rates are one of education's perennial bad-news stories. How bad? In 2008, there were 1,746 "dropout factories," high schools that graduate fewer than 60% of their students. But according to a new report released Tuesday, there is finally some good news to talk about. First, the national graduation rate has inched up from 72% in 2001 to 75% in 2008. There were 261 fewer dropout factories in 2008 than in 2002. And during that six-year period, 29 states improved their graduation rates with two of them — Wisconsin and Vermont — reaching almost a 90% graduation rate.

But don't call in the cast of Glee just yet. According to the report, by Johns Hopkins University along with two education-oriented groups, America's Promise Alliance and Civic Enterprises, eight states had graduation rates below 70% in 2008, and 2.2 million students still attend dropout factories. An achievement gap also persists: only 64% of Hispanic students and 62% of African Americans graduated in 2008, while 81% of white students did. (See the top 10 college dropouts.)

These shortfalls carry enormous costs for students as well as for taxpayers. In today's economy, dropouts have few options, a poor quality of life and almost no economic mobility. In 2009, the average person with a college degree earned about $1,015 a week while the average high school dropout earned just $454. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is 5.2% for those with a college degree and 14.6% for dropouts. The Alliance for Excellent Education, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., estimates that dropouts each year cost the nation more than $300 billion in lost income.

Dropouts are an issue in all communities. And for years, low graduation rates were masked by states and school districts that used misleading counting methods to make the dropout situation appear better than it was. Officials would, for example, only report the percentage of students who left in a particular year rather than the cumulative total for each cohort of ninth-graders. (That's like looking at a credit card's monthly interest charge instead of its annual rate.) But reformers have managed to put an end to that particular habit: as part of the push over the past decade for greater accountability in schools, states are now required to report on graduation rates in a more standardized and rigorous way. (See what makes a school great.)

Now that we have more reliable numbers, the just-released report — which is titled Building a Grad Nation (and for which, I should note, I participated in some of the lead-up work) — found that just as the dropout problem is more acute in some schools than in others, success in addressing the issue is varied too. New York and Tennessee, for example, saw substantial improvements in graduation rates while Arizona, Nevada and Utah slid noticeably in the wrong direction.

And while it's true that some of the recent progress could be the result of quick fixes — like low-quality programs that allow students to earn high school credits without actually meeting standards — one of the report's co-authors, Robert Balfanz, a Johns Hopkins researcher and nationally recognized dropout expert, told me that in order to see the sustained progress that is occurring in some places, "you have to change the underlying dynamics" in schools and school systems. (Read "No Dropouts Left Behind: New Rules on Grad Rates.")

He's right, which is why the Grad Nation report is at once welcome news but also a frustrating example of political impotence. Strategies to substantially improve outcomes can be deployed today. The steps the report identifies are well known and fairly obvious: smaller schools, effective teaching, accurate data and challenging standards that engage students, plus holding schools accountable for graduation rates and implementing early-warning systems that use data to identify and support students at risk of dropping out. Yet the report's authors told me they are worried that the volatile political environment in many states, coupled with almost 700 new state legislators and 29 new governors entering office in 2011, could make it harder to push through necessary reforms.

To help focus such efforts, the report calls for a Civic Marshall Plan. And just in case that metaphor was lost on anyone, Colin Powell, the founding chairman of America's Promise, co-wrote the forward for the report, an open letter calling the nation to action. (Comment on this story.)

Truly transforming America's education system into something envied the world over will require more innovation. Yet in the meantime, as shown by the new data, we can do substantially better simply by acting on what we know now. Which means that Grad Nation is good news but also a wake-up call. Three in four students graduating from high school is nothing to celebrate in a country like ours.

Andrew J. Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. School of Thought, his education column for TIME.com, usually runs on Thursdays.

Watch TIME's video "A Talk with Robert Bobb About Detroit Public Schools."

See pictures of homeschoolers.

In Their Own Words

FLASHPOINT Sunday, October 10, 2010

New Detroit, State of Michigan Board of Education, Former Detroit City Council Member and The Michigan Chronicle
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/25302063/index.html?taf=det

Gubernatorial Debate 10-10-10 (Update) and Interview with DPS Robert Bobb (12:00 Minute Mark)
http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/25300372/index.html?taf=det

CONTRAST: U.S. Education Conversation and Michigan Gubernatorial Understandings (Relevance Factor?)

Thursday, Oct. 07, 2010

Waiting for 'Superman': Education Reform Isn't Easy

By Andrew J. Rotherham

In the midst of a panel discussion following the Washington premiere of the education documentary Waiting for "Superman" on Sept. 15, CNN's Roland Martin breathlessly told his followers on Twitter that Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, "says they are going to look at making change to teachers tenure in their contracts. THIS IS HUGE."

Martin isn't the only one caught up in the moment. Today, the enthusiasm among education reformers is palpable. And why not? This seems like an amazing time, with NBC hosting a big education summit across its various networks to kick off the school year, a president seemingly committed to bold reform, and a feature film, Waiting for "Superman," from a major studio — made by none other than the Oscar-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth! (See "Fenty's Loss in D.C.: A Blow to Education Reform?")

Although the momentum seems unstoppable, don't pop the champagne or, worse, declare 'mission accomplished' just yet. Waiting for "Superman" is a hard-hitting documentary that lays bare many of America's education problems. But despite all the attention it's bringing to education, there are still more reasons to bet against reform than for it.

For starters, history doesn't offer much cause for optimism. This isn't the first time substantial reforms have seemed imminent. Education history is littered with big promises, national commissions and task forces, summits, and surprisingly little change. Two decades ago, when then-governor Clinton and the first President Bush gathered the nation's governors in Charlottesville, Va., reform seemed unstoppable. Some progress came out of it — it helped with the development of better state education standards — but it did not herald the revolution many were predicting at the time.

One reason for the slow pace of reform is because American public schools are fundamentally conservative — and because Americans are fundamentally conservative about their schools. In other words, the bias is strongly against change rather than for it, which explains why among parents, change is popular in theory but controversial in practice. (Affluent parents, for instance, support higher standards until those measures show that their public schools are not as good as they should be given the high property taxes these families are paying.) Although opposition to reform is often laid exclusively at the feet of the teachers' unions, it is actually a broader issue. (See pictures of a prestigious public boarding school in Washington.)

Of course, the unions obviously have a hand in today's debate, too. Although we like to think of teachers as a breed apart, their special interest groups — the two large national teachers' unions — are basically the same as any other special interest, and the politics just as brutal. In fact, combined, the two national teachers' unions spent more on federal campaign contributions than any other interest group from 1989 to 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that is just the national teachers unions, not the thousands of state and local ones. That adds up to a lot of money to keep various reforms at bay. And to keep various reformers at bay too. In Washington, for example, Politico reported that the American Federation of Teachers spent about $1 million in the run-up to last month's Democratic primary to help defeat Mayor Adrian Fenty, who had ushered in sweeping changes to the city's school district.

All this helps explain why John Wilson, executive director of the biggest teachers' union, the National Education Association, is nonplussed by Waiting for "Superman" and the slew of other education documentaries that have come out in recent months. "I think the films are a blip," he told the Sacramento Bee. "They will come and go, but the union will still be there, our members will still be in these schools." Sure, this may sound a little thuggish, but it's a political reality education reformers had better understand.

In American politics, concentrated special interests can do a lot to slow or thwart reform. Think about policy battles on issues as wide-ranging as energy, guns, tobacco, health care, the environment, or telecommunications and cable television. When it's the general interest pitted against an organized special interest, bet on the latter. (Comment on this story.)

In addition to the cultural and political entrenchment, the process of how funding gets allocated as well as how the various federal, state, and local rules constrain schools leaves surprisingly little room for innovation in education. Coupled with American education's anemic research and development infrastructure, the reality today is that we know a lot more about what does not work than about what does. For example, it's clear from abundant research that paying teachers only on the basis of their degrees and years of experience is not in the best interest of students or teachers. As the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and policy organization whose board of directors I chaired for several years, put it, "the evidence is conclusive that master's degrees do not make teachers more effective." Such clarity does not mean, however, that the reforms to fix these problems are obvious. The education field still has a lot to learn about how to effectively differentiate salary and incorporate elements like performance into compensation. (Watch TIME's video "Can Michelle Rhee Save Our Schools?")

Consequently, there will be a lot of trial and error along the way. Each failure provides critics with plenty of fodder and complicates the politics that much more. For example, when researchers at Vanderbilt University released a study in September showing no large improvements in student performance from a teacher merit pay pilot program, these findings were widely cited as definitive evidence of the folly of performance-based pay. But it was just one study of one program, hardly the last word. Meanwhile, the political debate about charter schools remains largely focused on the low-performing ones rather than what we can learn from those that are delivering transformative results.

So what's the takeaway? Certainly not that reformers should take their cue from Dante and call it quits. But they should realize the enormous work and time genuine reform will take. Building the capacity to deliver substantially improved education while simultaneously addressing the politics is an incredible two-front effort. Despite its promise and impressive accomplishments to date, the reform community is not yet prepared to do so at scale. Genuinely bold reformers are still more likely to lose elections than win them, and truly aggressive reform activity is still concentrated in relatively few places.

That's a problem because if there is a lesson from the last two years of education activity, it is that nothing happens absent tenacity and intense pressure for reform. Despite the rhetoric about changing teacher tenure, for example, Weingarten is still struggling to find a middle ground that satisfies her members and actually alters the reality in schools. Don't tell Roland Martin, but this past weekend there she was on CBS Sunday Morning, explaining why tenure isn't a problem anyway.

Andrew J. Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. School of Thought, his education column for TIME.com, appears every Thursday.

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Snyder’s plan

It’s time to get finances in order

School funding must stabilize, he says

By PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

   Businessman Rick Snyder says it’s time to stop making schools guess at how much money they’ll have each year.

   The Republican candidate for governor would stabilize school funding by cutting costs. He would have teachers pay more for health insurance and replace pensions with traditional 401(k)s for new teachers. He would require competitive bidding in school districts and look at more consolidation and sharing of services.

   “We need to be more cost-efficient,” Snyder said. “I’m not sure we can afford the system we have today.”

   He also would push for school districts to pool all their insurance needs into one pot, in order to get better rates.

   Snyder said he knows it could be tough to force changes to teachers’ benefits without cooperation from unions, in particular the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

   Many Michigan districts have health insurance through the MEA’s insurance arm, and the union has typically fought to keep it that way.

   But, “it’s a subject we need to have on the table,” Snyder said.

   Snyder said he believes his plan can save between $743 million and $1.11 billion: $87 million through pension reform; $156 million to $223 million through insurance reform; $200 million to $500 million through more competitive bidding, and $300 million through more consolidation and service sharing.

   Competitive bidding is already happening in many districts, but Snyder said he’d like to see it expanded. That doesn’t necessarily mean privatizing, he said.

   Instead, school districts could bid on contracts from other districts — to provide busing, for example.

   Snyder said he’d also push for consolidating across districts more services such as business functions, payroll orcurriculum planning.

   He said he’d also hold schools accountable for the quality of the education they are producing, while rewarding teachers for their success.

   “Shouldn’t we be able to do an analysis of what are the successful schools, the successful teachers?” Snyder asked.

   He said he wants to use data to find out what successful districts are doing, and how it can be replicated in others. Student test scores would be part of that data, but he said teachers should not be measured by scores alone.

   “Too often, we view measurement systems as a way to penalize people. I happen to see it as a way to reward success,” Snyder said.

   Snyder said he believes successful educators should be rewarded for success with some sort of pay for performance, or merit pay. He is not specific about how this would work, but he said merit pay, often a red flag to the unions, should go to the entire school instead of individual teachers. School-wide merit pay is much more palatable to union officials.

   “These are tough questions that we need to address, in terms of getting them on the table,” Snyder said.

   • CONTACT PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI: 313-222-8851 OR MMWALSH@FREEPRESS.COM  

Republican Rick Snyder says he’d push for more consolidation for school districts. “We need to be more cost-efficient,” he said. “I’m not sure we can afford the system we have today.”

CARLOS OSORIO/Associated Press

Bernero’s plan

It’s all about student success

Communities part of the solution, he says

By PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

   Students convicted of crimes may need to finish high school to get out of jail if Virg Bernero becomes governor. That’s just one of the ideas he has for improving education for Michigan children, outlined in his plan, Education is Economic Development.

   Making sure those kids have a diploma is not only better for the economy, but it’s also one of the best ways to avoid repeat offenders, Bernero said. A criminal record makes it hard to get a job, and a diploma could put them one step closer to getting hired.

   And Bernero said there are steps that can be taken now to keep those students out of jail — changing suspension policies, for instance. The solution right now is often kicking kids out of school, but that doesn’t solve the problem, it just encourages kids to drop out, Bernero said.

   Education would be better served if all schools used in-school suspensions. If in-school suspension doesn’t work, he would then send the student to what he calls right-track academies to turn the kids around.

   “If you do two things, if you discipline in a serious way and do an all-out assault on the dropout rate, that alone would bring a sea change to schools,” Bernero said. “I intend to lead the assault for the dropout rate and an extension of that, I very likely will lead community involvement in the schools.”

   While his plan is filled with his own ideas for fixing schools — including universal preschool and all-day kindergarten — Bernero said he also wants to make the community a part of the solution.

   “I want to build a system that allows for creativity and local ingenuity, that empowers the district so we let them know that failure is not an option,” Bernero said.

   His school reform would begin with “getting into these schools and talking to the teachers, doing some interviews, talking to parents, to see what’s going on.”

   Bernero’s interest in addressing education issues is spurred in part by his wife, Teri Bernero, principal of Lewton Elementary School in Lansing. The Democratic candidate also said it’s time to stop pummeling schools with costly, unfunded government mandates, such as annual reports on test scores and documentation for how government funding is spent — work that takes time that could better be focused on education.

   Let educators have a say in what’s needed to fix schools because they’re the ones who really know what’s going on inside the classroom, he said.

   He also would expand vocational education and career training. All students do not graduate from college, he said, but all Michigan students need to be able to get a decent job.

   Like his opponent, Rick Snyder, he also wants to fix school funding and, if elected, plans to create a statewide task force to address the issue.

   One area that would help save money, he said, is in consolidating duplicative services throughout each county, such as busing or payroll. Many services could be streamlined and run by county intermediate school districts.

   “Let’s get real about education funding,” Bernero said.

   • CONTACT PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI: 313-222-8851 OR MMWALSH@FREEPRESS   .COM  

Democrat Virg Bernero says his reform would start with talking to teachers and parents. “I want to build a system that … empowers the district so we let them know that failure is not an option,” he said.

CARLOS OSORIO/Associated Press