Reconstructed entry on the Secretary of Education.
So this is an attempt to reconstruct the entry on the Secretary of Education. Unfortunately, the articles I cited before either a)have been removed, b)are now subscribers-only at their various sites, or c)are in that frustrating group of articles one can only seem to find once.
So I have been following the Cabinet selection process very closely. This is me, and this is politics, so this should come as a surprise to no-one. One of the positions I have been following with the most interest has, of course, been that of Secretary of Education. President-Elect Obama has been doing an excellent job so far of picking people who are at least somewhat in agreement with his own agenda, and who will do a good job of collecting ideas from all around the table. This is going to be an unusually difficult task with this particular position, though, and
Obama has made two different statements of agenda concerning education. Statement 1: We need to reform education; we need to change the way things are going in the classroom, bring innovation into the schools, and reward schools, districts, and teachers who are bringing that innovation to their students. We need greater accountability to ensure that it is unacceptable for teachers and schools and districts to simply rest on their laurels as is. Statement 2: We need to seriously revise NCLB. We need to provide more support to teachers, and more support to schools. We need to be helping, not punishing, struggling schools, helping them become something other than failures, rather than shutting them down altogether. We need to make sure that students are provided with the education they are guaranteed as Americans, and that they are receiving the services they need. We need to put the money where the ideas are, and make sure that the educational system is capable of providig that education and those services.
Both statements are excellent. Unfortunately, Statement 1 tends to be supported by those who also support vouchers and charter schools as alternatives to the public school system, and who think that competitiveness alone will force the public schools to improve. This group also tends to think that the educational system in the United States can be improved with philosophy and reform alone, without financial commitment. Statement 2 tends to be supported by the teachers' unions, who have problems of their own, including the fact that may of the leaders of those unions have their heads up their asses, and the fact that the unions tend to lack any sort of perspective or willingness to really negotiate when the shit hits the fan. (Example: the local unions in my county are trying to force the superintendent to stop making cuts of any kind, when the county is over $200 million dollars in debt... and they aren't willing to compromise.)
It will be difficult, if not impossible, to find someone who is willing to promote both sides of the new administration's educational agenda.
But the media is doing an even worse job of covering this than they usually do. Articles about the selection process for Secretary of Education are showing a worrisome tendency to phrase the issue as one of “accountability” versus “non-accountability.” I have actually seen statements made in reputable papers that the teachers' unions are against any kind of accountability, which is a truly ludicrous statemet. The unions aren't against accountability; they're against the current mindset and implementation of accountability, which starts with the basic assumption that teachers are second-class workers whose primary personal and professioal agenda is “make as much money as possible for as little effort as possible.” Which frankly doesn't make any sense to me as an assumption, given the way teachers are and are not compensated.
The media is further distorting the issue by simply making the teachers' unions the “bad guys,” and portraying students and families as the “good guys” or even as “victims,” which leads to setting up some kind of opposition that doesn't, and shouldn't, exist. This is indicative of an overall perspective which is negative both in its outlook and in its outcome, and I hope the President-Elect manages to navigate this particular minefield without losing his own positive principles in the face of it all.
So I have been following the Cabinet selection process very closely. This is me, and this is politics, so this should come as a surprise to no-one. One of the positions I have been following with the most interest has, of course, been that of Secretary of Education. President-Elect Obama has been doing an excellent job so far of picking people who are at least somewhat in agreement with his own agenda, and who will do a good job of collecting ideas from all around the table. This is going to be an unusually difficult task with this particular position, though, and
Obama has made two different statements of agenda concerning education. Statement 1: We need to reform education; we need to change the way things are going in the classroom, bring innovation into the schools, and reward schools, districts, and teachers who are bringing that innovation to their students. We need greater accountability to ensure that it is unacceptable for teachers and schools and districts to simply rest on their laurels as is. Statement 2: We need to seriously revise NCLB. We need to provide more support to teachers, and more support to schools. We need to be helping, not punishing, struggling schools, helping them become something other than failures, rather than shutting them down altogether. We need to make sure that students are provided with the education they are guaranteed as Americans, and that they are receiving the services they need. We need to put the money where the ideas are, and make sure that the educational system is capable of providig that education and those services.
Both statements are excellent. Unfortunately, Statement 1 tends to be supported by those who also support vouchers and charter schools as alternatives to the public school system, and who think that competitiveness alone will force the public schools to improve. This group also tends to think that the educational system in the United States can be improved with philosophy and reform alone, without financial commitment. Statement 2 tends to be supported by the teachers' unions, who have problems of their own, including the fact that may of the leaders of those unions have their heads up their asses, and the fact that the unions tend to lack any sort of perspective or willingness to really negotiate when the shit hits the fan. (Example: the local unions in my county are trying to force the superintendent to stop making cuts of any kind, when the county is over $200 million dollars in debt... and they aren't willing to compromise.)
It will be difficult, if not impossible, to find someone who is willing to promote both sides of the new administration's educational agenda.
But the media is doing an even worse job of covering this than they usually do. Articles about the selection process for Secretary of Education are showing a worrisome tendency to phrase the issue as one of “accountability” versus “non-accountability.” I have actually seen statements made in reputable papers that the teachers' unions are against any kind of accountability, which is a truly ludicrous statemet. The unions aren't against accountability; they're against the current mindset and implementation of accountability, which starts with the basic assumption that teachers are second-class workers whose primary personal and professioal agenda is “make as much money as possible for as little effort as possible.” Which frankly doesn't make any sense to me as an assumption, given the way teachers are and are not compensated.
The media is further distorting the issue by simply making the teachers' unions the “bad guys,” and portraying students and families as the “good guys” or even as “victims,” which leads to setting up some kind of opposition that doesn't, and shouldn't, exist. This is indicative of an overall perspective which is negative both in its outlook and in its outcome, and I hope the President-Elect manages to navigate this particular minefield without losing his own positive principles in the face of it all.