How New Generation of Reformers Targets Democrats on Education

Democrats for Education Reform got its first press today, on the front page of the NY Sun!

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How New Generation of Reformers Targets Democrats on Education

 

BY ELIZABETH GREEN - Staff Reporter of the Sun

May 31, 2007

URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/55537

 

A money manager recently sent an e-mail to some partners, congratulating them on an investment of $1 million that yielded an estimated $400 million. The reasoning was that $1 million spent on trying to lift a cap on the number of charter schools in New York State yielded a change in the law that will bring $400 million a year in funding to new charter schools.

 

The money managers who were among the main investors in this law — three Harvard MBAs and a Wharton graduate named Whitney Tilson, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, Charles Ledley, and John Petry — are moving education-oriented volunteerism beyond championing a single school. They want to shift the political debate by getting the Democratic Party to back innovations such as merit pay for teachers, a longer school day, and charter schools.

 

The organization from which they hope to launch their revolution, Democrats for Education Reform, does some of its work at cocktail parties hosted in Mr. Curry's Trump Plaza penthouse. The group — actually two separate political action committees — has raised money for senators Obama, Clinton, and Lieberman; Governor Spitzer; Rep. George Miller; state senators Malcolm Smith and Antoine Thompson; assemblymen Sam Hoyt, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jonathan Bing, and City Council Member Vito Lopez. They count the charter cap lift, signed by Mr. Spitzer in April, as their first major victory.

 

Next week, at a June 5 launch party, they will press their next goals, including a plan to raise several more million dollars, expand into at least four different states, and shape the 2008 presidential race.

 

"It's easy to work at a school and have it be a cute little philanthropic effort," the group's executive director, Joe Williams, said. "But these guys are really about running the tables. They don't want a couple of cute little schools."

 

Though charter schools are public, they operate independent of many regulations and receive less than the usual per-student funding. So school operators depend on donors to survive. Three of DFER's four founders sit on the boards of charter schools, and the fourth, Mr. Ledley, has just applied for a spot of his own.

 

But none of the four have been satisfied just to invest in a few schools. Mr. Curry's story is typical. After graduating from Yale in 1988, he worked at a consulting firm that specialized in selling best-practices tips to big industries, like hospitals or banks. In 1990 the firm took on a pro bono project, meeting with 15 school superintendents at a conference in San Francisco. "Where could we help you?" the consultants asked. The room was silent. "It soon became clear that unlike somebody who was running a bank, their issue wasn't that they didn't know what to do," Mr. Curry recalled. "It was that they didn't have the ability to do it." Interest groups with a stake in the status quo, they explained — teachers' unions, janitors' unions, parents groups, the federal government — had made change impossible.

 

The firm abandoned its project, deeming it a lost cause. But Mr. Curry held tight to the lesson. When New York began allowing charter schools in 1998, he raised a few million dollars to co-found Girls Preparatory on the Lower East Side. As a charter, the school had freedom to implement new ideas, like paying teachers 20% above teachers in traditional city public schools — but demanding longer hours — and making a principal with just a few years' experience a six-figure starting offer. Mr. Curry says he and the board had planned to offer less, but a bidding war with another charter school kicked up the wage.

 

Teachers' unions may give a big boost to the Democratic Party, but so do those working in finance. If Democrats for Education Reform can convince them to press issues like length of the school day and merit-based teacher pay, it could force a dramatic swing in the party itself.

 

Last week, Mr. Curry made his pitch to the Fortress Investment Group's head of global investments, Mike Novogratz, in a meeting in Mr. Novogratz's Midtown office. Leaving, Mr. Curry wondered whether Mr. Novogratz, whose company recently went public and made him a fortune, would sign on. He seemed to have bought the sell — about leverage, and the possibility of enormous change from a relatively small amount of money. But would Mr. Novogratz, a major Democratic fund-raiser, be wary to "break any glass"? Mr. Curry found the answer in his e-mail inbox: "I'm in." Mr. Novogratz has pledged $50,000 to Democrats for Education Reform.

 

Last week the group hosted a dinner for State Senator Malcolm Smith, the minority leader, one day before he was scheduled to attend a fund-raiser hosted by the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. "Nobody's going to be bought here," Mr. Williams said. "Any reasonable person that wants to become the Senate majority leader should be talking with Randi. We just want him to be talking to us too."

 

As investors, the group's leaders spend their days searching for hidden diamonds in the rough: businesses the market has left for dead, but a savvy investor could turn for a profit. A big inner-city school system, Mr. Tilson explained, is kind of like that — the General Motors of the education world. "I see very, very similar dynamics: very large bureaucratic organizations that have become increasingly disconnected from their customers; that are producing an inferior product and losing customers; that are heavily unionized," he said. A successful charter school, on the other hand, is like "Toyota 20 years ago."

Panel on Closing the Educational Achievement Gap

This looks like a really interesting panel tomorrow evening:

Closing the Educational Achievement Gap: No Child Left Behind, De Facto Segregation and the Quest for Educational Equality

Wednesday, May 2, 2007, 6:30 - 9 pm

House of the Association, 42 West 44th Street

This is a critical time for one of the most important issues facing our democracy: how to close the achievement gap between low income children of color and more affluent white children and to provide equal educational opportunity for all children regardless of race, ethnicity or economic status. This year, Congress is slated to consider reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act ("NCLB"), the sweeping federal law that has become the framework for public education nationally. At the same time, in New York, Governor Spitzer and Mayor Bloomberg have ambitious agendas for improving education, and the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether local school districts can voluntarily take steps to remedy de facto segregation.

With a particular focus on New York City, this evening forum will feature a panel of distinguished experts who will discuss whether NCLB is meeting its goal of closing the achievement gap; whether NCLB should be reauthorized and if so, what changes are needed; and what educational policies will work to close the gap. Key considerations will include whether those policies may discriminate against the low income, largely minority children they purport to help; and whether policymakers must address the de facto segregation of our urban schools as part of the effort to provide equality of educational opportunity.

Moderator:

ANTHONY DePALMA, The New York Times

Speakers:

ANDRES ALONSO, Deputy Chancellor for Teaching & Learning, NYC Department of Education

DENNIS D. PARKER, Director, Racial Justice Program, American Civil Liberties Union

EDWIN C. DARDEN, Director of Education Policy, Appleseed

SHEILA EVANS-TRANUMN, Associate Commissioner, New York State Education Department

DOUGLAS MESECAR, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation, United States Department of Education

MICHELLE BODDEN, Vice President, United Federation of Teachers

Sponsored by:

Committee on Civil Rights ,Sidney Rosdeitcher, Chair; Committee on Education and Law, Paul O'Neill, Chair

Members of the Association, their guests and all other interested persons are invited to attend. There is no fee for attending the program, however registration is recommended. You may register at http://www.nycbar.org/EventsCalendar/show_event.php?eventid=656

Hillary Clinton on school reform

I asked Hillary Clinton the following question a week and half ago:

"I was in Washington DC yesterday and heard a story from one of Senator Kerry's education policy advisors during his Presidential campaign.  At one point during the campaign, the Senator wanted to say something bold about education, so at a speech in Harlem, he proposed the most benign reforms imaginable: paying math and science teachers more than gym teachers, and paying more to teachers willing to teach in the toughest schools.  Within hours, the NEA put enormous pressure on Sen. Kerry and he never said another word about education reform the rest of the campaign.  Things haven't changed much since then. 

 

"I'm trying to find a Presidential candidate who will put the interests of children trapped in failing schools above those of union bosses.  Can you comment?"

After the applause died down, her answer was that (from memory; also based on a few things she said when I spoke with her at the cocktail party before the event):

- she agrees that the system isn't working

- she is very independent from the teachers unions and WILL put children first

- the union's been moving on this issue because they realize that maintaining the status quo is no longer an option

- she's long been a champion of charter schools

- she favors differential pay

- we have to focus on programs that work (she lit up when I mentioned my association with Teach for America and KIPP)

- NCLB needs to be renewed and strengthened

- when NCLB is renewed, the money should be tied to states spending it ONLY on programs with proven track records

- as part of NCLB's renewal, she favors making a few cities test cases for a comprehensive package of reforms like KIPP (I told her what KIPP was doing in Houston and also suggested Newark)

- she believes that teacher quality is critical and said that when Bill was first elected governor of Arkansas, she proposed a program to test teachers to make sure they knew their subject material (which, I heard, so angered the union that they helped make Bill a one-term governor (if anyone knows the full story here, please tell it to me))

 

I wish I could believe this, but some of it doesn't seem very consistent with what she said to the NY State teachers the union, made only days later...

Here's the Education Week article about her speech.  Here are the areas in which the tone or content appears to be new or different:

1) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the current front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, today blasted the No Child Left Behind Act as narrowing schools’ curricula and relying too heavily on standardized tests at the expense of student creativity.

2) Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, suggested in a speech to the National School Boards Association earlier this month that the law be amended to test students less frequently, possibly three times during their K-12 careers instead of annually in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

3) [This is new -- she didn't say anything about this when I saw her] Sen. Clinton also criticized the law’s provisions allowing students in schools that fail to meet achievement targets to receive access to tutoring, often provided by private companies. She said that since such tutors aren’t subject to the same accountability regulations as public school educators and administrators, it’s difficult to tell whether such supplemental services are working.

And here are the areas in which they were consistent:

1) She said policymakers should focus resources instead on what she described as proven remedies, such as smaller class sizes and enhanced parent involvement. Teachers deserve greater professional respect and higher pay, particularly if they are willing to work in some of the hardest-to-staff schools, she said.

2) While Sen. Clinton gave her audience—some of whom hissed at the mere mention of No Child Left Behind—plenty to cheer about, she reasserted her support for charter schools, to the chagrin of some.

In summary, this appears to have been the take-away:

the speech appeared to have resonated with most of her audience. Several union members said that they were more inclined to vote for her after hearing her speak.

“I liked what she had to say. The testing is just taking over, and I hope she can change that,” if she becomes president, said Jane Cassidy, a special education teacher at Branch Brook Elementary School in Smithtown, N.Y. Ms. Cassidy, a Democrat, said she is leaning toward supporting Sen. Clinton in next year’s presidential primary.

“I thought she had excellent things to say,” said Thomas Stephens, a social studies teacher at Hicksville Middle School, in Hicksville, N.Y., who called the NCLB law “the worst thing that’s ever happened to public education.”

One friend's summary:

Hillary Clinton summarized: Get rid of the testing requirements for public schools because they are punitive. Stop giving free tutoring to poor kids because the providers aren’t subject to the same testing requirements as public schools. (My head hurts.)

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Published Online: April 27, 2007

Hillary Clinton Critical of NCLB Before State Teachers’ Union

By Alyson Klein, Education Week

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/04/27/35hillary_web.h26.html

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the current front-runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, today blasted the No Child Left Behind Act as narrowing schools’ curricula and relying too heavily on standardized tests at the expense of student creativity.

Impotent Liberalism

I think Hillary is smart enough to get the joke but, more than any other Democratic presidential contender (as the front-runner with long-standing ties to and support from the teachers union -- it's a lock that they will endorse her), she faces the issues that Andy Rotherham discusses in this three-year-old article I just found.  Its points are still 100% true today about the bankrupt approach of liberals and Democrats to school reform:

Spend time in a good urban charter school, a high-performing traditional urban public school or with Teach for America teachers. That's real liberalism in action, a muscular public sector achieving public purposes and expanding opportunity to the disenfranchised but challenging interests -- even sympathetic ones -- that thwart progress.

 

By contrast, to read and hear what leading liberals have to say about education in this particular package and elsewhere is to see vividly the collapse of the moral authority of liberalism because of too many compromises, conflicted interests, and a focus on affiliations rather than principles. When the issue is not school spending, liberals, in no small part because of politics, too often end up siding with the adults and not the kids. Simply being against what George W. Bush wants to do, focusing overwhelmingly on spending and criticizing NCLB, testing, or any other reform does not constitute anything even remotely approximating a progressive agenda on education in an environment where literally millions of youngsters are habitually undereducated.

 

Borosage is exactly right that conservatives do often push some extreme ideas (and not just on education). They will fail to address education problems over the long haul because many conservatives today are antagonistic toward the public sector and overconfident about the ability of the private sector to address social problems (and in some cases, indifferent to these problems in the first place). But this is exactly what makes today's liberal stance on education so exasperating. It leaves the field empty. And the loser in that battle is not some political candidate but the very people modern liberalism is most supposed to hold promise for in the first place.

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Impotent Liberalism

The American Prospect, February 2004

by Andrew J. Rotherham

(responding to articles in: http://www.prospect.org/print/special0402.html)

 

A recent American Prospect package on education reform is well worth reading less because of what it says than for what it does not. Collectively the articles, most of which raise important points (particularly the emphasis on early childhood education -- look for a paper by PPI's Sara Mead on this issue shortly), show the incoherence and ultimately the impotence of modern liberalism when it comes to addressing today's educational problems.

 

For example, Robert Borosage, a leading liberal intellectual, offers the standard disclaimer that money alone is not a reform. Nonetheless Borosage then turns what could be an interesting essay on the enormous challenges public education faces and lack of support for meeting them into a call for basically more of the same, with an emphasis on the importance of the "common school." Romanticism about common schools in the face of what research shows about the demographics and outcomes of public education is an astounding feat of denial. Moreover it is a misdirection play to divert attention from the horrifying achievement gap that is one of the primary barriers to greater social equity and mobility today. We're all for more investment in public education, particularly in underserved communities, and would like to see greater support for public schools, too. Yet neither of these challenges should serve as a smokescreen for serious structural problems that result in a system that systematically undereducates minority and poor youngsters.

 

Similarly, the usually insightful Peter Schrag repeats some common attacks on No Child Left Behind that likely play well to much of the Prospect's readership but do not point to concrete solutions for the vexing problem of how to ensure accountability for underserved students in a heterogeneous system. Meanwhile, he buries a key quote by William Taylor of the Citizens Commission for Civil Rights that in a more rational debate would excite the liberal press and form the backbone of a true liberal critique of current educational policies. [For the record, here is Taylor, certainly no conservative apparatchik, "The federal government is doing a hell of a lot more for the states now than in the early years. A lot of the whining and bitching and moaning is coming from people who don't like the accountability provisions, so they're saying they don't have the money to do this."]

 

With some notable exceptions, it never seems to enter the calculus of today's establishment liberals that perhaps a system that works inadequately for too many poor and minority youngsters (and does so in all types of communities -- equity problems are not just the urban tail wagging the public school dog) needs broader reforms.

 

Could greater public sector choice and customization, more rigorous quality expectations, or improving our teaching force help address some of these problem and better meet the needs of America's diverse student body, particularly disadvantaged students? Of course, but these ideas all disrupt established adult interests in one way or another. As a frustrated school superintendent remarked sardonically to me recently when discussing his efforts to improve student learning in the crossfire of urban politics, "the attitude is that kids are just passing through, but the adults have to be able to get along because we have to be able to work here..."

 

Borosage's dismissal of phonics, reforming teacher certification, and testing as "conservative reforms" amply illustrates the sorry state of affairs. This characterization ignores the quantitative evidence pointing to phonics as an essential component of effective reading instruction. It also ignores the staggering lack of empirical evidence supporting current certification schemes, which the Education Commission of the States (hardly a conservative organization) recently pointed out.

 

Robert Kennedy made the case for testing and accountability almost 40 years ago when, during debate over the original ESEA, he pointed out that regular student testing is an essential part of federal efforts to ensure equity. Kennedy wasn't a "crank," to borrow Borosage's moniker, and certainly not a conservative. But he understood then what too many liberals forget today: schools are not the right unit of analysis, children are. Likewise, Albert Shanker, the legendary American Federation of Teachers president and school reformer (and another non-crank and non-conservative) also unapologetically favored testing, with consequences. Shanker also opposed numerous faddish reforms that today make many liberals swoon and didn't let romanticism get in the way of addressing hard realities. Both men exemplified real liberalism, the kind that holds the promise of helping the disadvantaged, rather than today's variety that is bold only so long as no interest group is left behind. Yes, for various positions they took, Kennedy and Shanker would likely be labeled "conservatives" in today's education debate.

 

The cause of this incoherence and exhausting affinity to tired shibboleths is painfully obvious -- interest group rather than ideas-based liberalism. Liberals have become beholden to institutions and organizations so today's liberal universe is essentially delineated by constellations of interest groups rather than core principles or ideas.

 

In education the clearest manifestation of this is the remarkable consistency with which the interests of adults and the "system" trump those of children and the infrequency with which the press or anyone else even remarks about this. It's become internalized. For example, in the current debate over NCLB numerous media stories focus on speculation about what the law might do to schools with hardly any mention of what it might do for children.

 

Spend time in a good urban charter school, a high-performing traditional urban public school or with Teach for America teachers. That's real liberalism in action, a muscular public sector achieving public purposes and expanding opportunity to the disenfranchised but challenging interests -- even sympathetic ones -- that thwart progress.

 

By contrast, to read and hear what leading liberals have to say about education in this particular package and elsewhere is to see vividly the collapse of the moral authority of liberalism because of too many compromises, conflicted interests, and a focus on affiliations rather than principles. When the issue is not school spending, liberals, in no small part because of politics, too often end up siding with the adults and not the kids. Simply being against what George W. Bush wants to do, focusing overwhelmingly on spending and criticizing NCLB, testing, or any other reform does not constitute anything even remotely approximating a progressive agenda on education in an environment where literally millions of youngsters are habitually undereducated.

 

Borosage is exactly right that conservatives do often push some extreme ideas (and not just on education). They will fail to address education problems over the long haul because many conservatives today are antagonistic toward the public sector and overconfident about the ability of the private sector to address social problems (and in some cases, indifferent to these problems in the first place). But this is exactly what makes today's liberal stance on education so exasperating. It leaves the field empty. And the loser in that battle is not some political candidate but the very people modern liberalism is most supposed to hold promise for in the first place.

 

Andrew J. Rotherham is Director of PPI's 21st Century Schools Project and editor of The Bulletin.