DOE ARRA with SFSF

The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.
—President Barack Obama, Feb. 24, 2009

I received my DOE ARRA package of SFSF guidelines. For those new to the stimulus game, that is the Department of Education guidelines for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as it applies to the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund. It makes for fascinating reading if only because it is very hard to see how Governor’s are going to suddenly, in two weeks, commit to the following:

“to advance essential education reforms to benefit students from early learning through post-secondary education, including: college- and career- ready standards and high-quality, valid and reliable assessments for all students; development and use of pre-K through post-secondary and career data systems; increasing teacher effectiveness and ensuring an equitable distribution of qualified teachers; and turning around the lowest-performing schools.”

It seems like a stretch to me. But governors can get 67% of their share of $48.6 billion of SFSF by applying to DOE and demonstrating a commitment to the above. The 33% will be distributed once the governors submit their plan to demonstrate the commitment above and those funds will be delivered starting July 1, 2009.

I imagine the teaching portion of those plans will look very similar to the plans the states had to submit to the DOE for reaching 100% highly qualified teachers. If you have ever read those plans, they basically repackaged exactly what the state was currently doing and said that those programs were now suddenly going to solve the problem.

My guess is that because the time frame is so short we will see exactly the same thing for these funds. The status quo will be reworded to show that it is now a reform that will create better results for students but in the end wont change a thing.

I could be wrong – but I seriously doubt it.

But just in case, I will make sure we contact the governors of ABCTE states to see if we can help them recruit more teachers for high needs schools.

You can't push a rope.

It is hard to fully understand everything that is going on in every state. So it came as a surprise to me yesterday when I was in Springfield Illinois that the demise of Governor Blagojevich was written in stone long before the unanimous vote was taken. As we walked around the capital, it became very clear that the sin of selling Obama’s senate seat was just a miniscule tip of the ice burg. Apparently his approval rating had fallen to 18% BEFORE the FBI press conference about senate seat for sale. He didn’t even come to the capital during the session much and almost nothing got passed last year due to his arrogance and inability to play well with others. The hatred for this man in the state house on both sides of the aisle was just amazing.

It sounds very familiar – certainly not as extreme – but familiar. The Bush administration became known for bullying, steamrolling and pretty much the “my way or the highway” mentality. No collaboration and nothing of substance accomplished.

One of my favorite leadership lines from Navy training was that you can’t push a rope. You have to lead. It is refreshing to see many in the Obama administration, especially Secretary Duncan, establishing some basic leadership in their departments as we head into these incredibly difficult times. I am very impressed that Duncan went around, met people, and promised to listen. We are absolutely desperate for leadership in education and leadership is not defined as pushing one agenda – it requires people to listen and collaborate.

It is clearly evident that Pelosi and Reid skipped the leadership seminar that the rest of the Obama team went to. No collaboration there and it already creating problems for the administration. The Democrats have a great opportunity to lead this country out of serious issues, and they are going to fail miserably because of these two.

For our own work, I am struck by the times we are able to collaborate with teacher groups and the one group that will never work with us. Early on when I took over as president, I relied on the constructive criticism of the national AFT teacher quality team. (AFT does NOT endorse our program – they do not blindly condemn it either). Because of their input we introduced a policy to be totally transparent and publish everything, we strengthened the program with additional resources and we increased the studies on our teachers. I consider them invaluable in making this a better program. In the end Joan Baratz-Snowden who retired as head of teacher quality for AFT joined our board of directors to continue the progress we have made. They call me with any questions about our program to make sure they are accurate. As Rob Weil told me: “you are a learning organization and we can always work with that”

In Missouri, the Missouri State Teachers Association are neutral on our program. They knew the state had to do something and worked with us to create a bill that was stronger for Missouri and still met the needs of our potential candidates. This collaboration has resulted in over 850 enrollments in Missouri in 9 months of which 425 are in math and science. They listened to us and we absolutely listened to them.

On the Pelosi/Reid side of collaboration for us is the NEA. No constructive criticism, no meetings to discuss ways to improve – they don’t like us and no matter what we do, they will never like us or work on improvements. Unless we develop a college of education program, we are out. Heck it has been 20 years and they still hate TFA.

I do believe that collaboration is on the rise and hopefully the administration will not get discouraged. They should continue to look for ways to strengthen our country by working together. And hopefully the Reid/Pelosi/NEA “my way or the highway” attitude will go the way of the Blagojevich’s of the world.

President Obama and ABCTE

It is appropriate for the blogosphere to recognize the transformation in DC right now. Since our birth occurred during the Bush era I am often asked how we will fair with the new administration. The answer apparently lies at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/education/

• Recruit Teachers: Obama and Biden will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education, including high-quality alternative programs for mid-career recruits in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location.

Three years ago, we set out to create a Board of Directors that absolutely focused on solving a problem. Our current board is a bi-partisan board that has helped us ensure that our program resonates with anyone who wants to look at the issue from one point of view: does it help students succeed.

It is an exciting time in education and the changes that will occur in the next few years because so many people are focused student success will be transformational.