Let's start with the left. With post titles like "Overstated" and "Stimulus Bill Intensifies But Does Not Change Federal Role" from sites and sources I respect, my mind keeps going back to the figures we're talking about here. As Charlie Barone points out in a great post, the new money will be the largest increase in federal education funds ever. Money alone does not change the federal role in education, but it's hard to believe that this kind of increase will not have a major impact, especially come re-authorization time.
There's indication that people are already getting used to the money. A USA Today article on the stimulus package had this innocent-looking paragraph in it:
Mary Kusler, a lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators, says Title I and IDEA "are areas where they cannot cut back three years from now."Congress continues to assert that these funds are temporary, although those assertions are somewhat unbelievable. In a conference call on the stimulus on Wednesday, House Committee on Education and Labor Chairman George Miller was somber and eloquent throughout the call. But when asked if a $500 increase in the Pell Grant would be permanent or for only the next two years, as the stimulus is, Miller reiterated that it was an "emergency recovery act" but also indicated the decision would be made later, in concert with President Obama's future budget requests. My question is: does anyone really believe the first time we "fully fund" No Child Left Behind, as this bill does, it will be the last? Won't cities, states, and interest groups (like the American Association of School Administrators, for example) adjust to this influx and kind of like it?
The right is as upset as the left is credulous. Over at the Gadfly, Mike Petrilli and Checker Finn are ready to pronounce the entire school reform movement dead. "How so?" they ask:
Because of what turns out, in retrospect, to be a tragic flaw in the strategy of many reformers in recent decades: offer the education establishment a lot more money in return for a little reform. Understandable, sure, and in many state capitols and along the banks of the Potomac there probably was no other way to go about it. But what happens when the extra money dries up? When even the pre-reform money sinks into the recessionary soil? During flush times, buying reform seemed to make a certain kind of sense and to be relatively low risk, a bit like buying a big new house or fancy new car. During hard times, however, that turns out to be the very definition of unsustainability.
This analysis is both gloomy and missing in all creativity. The stimulus may or may not have some key ed reform provisions, depending on which way the Senate goes, but if George Miller, Arne Duncan, and Barack Obama have a say (and I think they will), the provisions will be in the final version. What's more, the Gadfly analysis has no vision into the future. "Fully funding" NCLB gives the Department of Education and future Congresses more leverage to go after pet reforms. Advocates of local control used to be able to say that federal spending in K-12 education was "only nine percent" of all education dollars. But now that ratio is changing, and where I come from, more money contributed means more influence. A higher percentage of federal dollars means greater clout, too.
That, I think, is the real lesson here. The stimulus package is an unfathomably large sum of money that will be passed through Congress in an incredibly short period of time. Three weeks is a blink of an eye in legislative history, and soon the federal role in education will be changed irrevocably. Let's not pretend that that's not true or that it's an entirely bad thing. Crisis breeds opportunity.
Additionally: If you're still unconvinced, consider doubling the federal investment in education again. It would then total 35-40 percent of all revenues. Or, think of the fact that, in a few weeks, we'll have doubled the federal investment in education in 2002 and again in 2009. 2016, anyone?
2 comments:
Yes, crisis can breed opportunity and read your post in conjunction with Robert Manwaring's and a "no-brainer" jumps out. Reformers of all stripes need to decide how to respond when their neighbors' neighborhood schools catch fire. Do they loan the garden hose or offer more lectures about the lack of accountability?
If we fire 10s of thousands of teachers and many neighborhood schools crater, who will care if charters, some special ed programs, and others get a gold plated order of their ultimate wish list?
I've seen both sides of the equation, and many policy analysts "don't know what they don't know" about recessions. The cutbacks of educators and programs is not the largest part of the problem. As the economy wrecks families, schools will be overwhelmed by more traumatized kids. The challenges on the adult side will be dwarfed by the challenges on the students side. And the collapse of a system causes far more harm than the good that can be created by building a new system. Just as the financial crisis was made worse by the short memories on Wall Street, the new generation of reformers will be getting more of an education than they realize.
The prime purpose of the Stimulus Package is stimulus. Don't we all sympathize with Sen. Grassley's concerns about mission creep? We in education want the Stimulus money to be spent as promised except in education where we each have an agenda which would be transformative. In the Health sector, I bet, they want educators to play by the rules of the Stimulus game, but they each want their agenda to be the exception. During the Depression, my mentors wanted land reform, not the propping up of the horrible cotton agricultural sector, but FDR wasn't in a situation where he could gamble on social enginneering. Had we not survived the depression and WWII, FDR's pragmatism wouldn't look too good. And the land reformers had been "right" and it would have been better if we had wiped the slate clean - as long as we didn't screw it up like the Soviet Five Year Plans ....
I have also seen what happened when my school was flooded with hundreds of thousands of dollars of capital expenditures to meet NCLB while teacher cutbacks brought the school to its knees - turning us from a historically challenged school into "The Wire."
If we can't use Stimulus to "supplant," we are gambling with fire. Imagine the ammunition we'd give the Right Wing if we doubled federal spending and schools collapsed because veteran teachers were fired in mass as we hired newly minted special ed teachers and we tried out "the reformers" theories.
From my perspective in the nosebleed seats in the bleachers, I want my union to be a team player also. I'd like to restore the Senate's funding of charters in return for language that gives unions a fair shake in those schools. - as well as for earning some good will.
From my outsiders perspective, that seems to be the issue with many data-driven reformers. Their righteousness is unquestioned, but will they be "team players?"
Now is the time for problem solving. For once, I'd like the field of education to pay more attention to heading off problems than cleaning them up afterwards.
And what can we who work in "the status quo" offer to the new generation of reformers? Those of us who have witnessed the effects of recessions on poor kids have some practical experience. You should see what has been happening to my students in the last few months, and its barely hit here. I suspect that NYC schools may soon see what we faced in the recession/depression of 1983.
thanks
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