Education – Indoctrinating Hard Work

Today, President Obama addressed elementary and high school students across the nation — the first time a president has spoken directly to America’s studentssince 1991 — in a back-to-school speech emphasizing the importance of personal responsibility in education. Some conservatives spent last week heavily criticizing the President’s plan to speak, saying it was “an attempt at ‘indoctrination‘ of kids,” and encouraging parents to keep their children home for the day. But as Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, ”[T]he whole message [of the speech] is about personal responsibility and challenging students to take their education very, very seriously.” Indeed, as the Washington Post pointed out, the speech did not mention any political agenda but drew on “Obama’s own education experience — from the predawn tutoring by his mother when his family lived in Indonesia to his acceptance to law school” to make its point about the importance of educational attainment. “At the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world — and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities,” Obama said to the students. “Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.”

‘STAVED OFF AN EDUCATION CATASTROPHE’: As part of the conservative uproar prior to the speech, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins claimed that the President “hasn’t pushed any educational reform issues.” However, the administration has made an “unprecedented investment” in education — including $100 billion in new money — to implement a strong reform agenda, driven in large part by the economic stimulus package passed in February. But the stimulus also, as Duncan explained, “staved off an education catastrophe,” filling budget gaps that would have forced states to significantly cut their education funding. “We would have had hundreds of thousands of teachers who were going to be teaching, starting last week and this week, who would have been out of jobs, teachers, social workers, counselors,” Duncan said. Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) said that he expects the effect of education budget cuts in his state to be “very, very minimal” due to the stimulus. The stimulus is also helping to combat other effects of the economic downturn, including providing transportation help to the more than one million students without stable housing, a number that “has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.”

RACE TO THE TOP: A main thrust of the administration’s reform effort included in the stimulus package is Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion fund that “provides competitive grants to encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform.” In order to qualify for the funding, states and districts must address four reform areas: adopting internationally benchmarked assessments and standards, rewarding effective teachers and principals, building new data systems and turning around low-performing schools. States are also ineligible for the money “if they have laws on the booksprohibiting student performance from affecting teacher assessment.” States should adopt these reforms because, as the Center for American Progress pointed out in its report Stimulating Excellence, “the current and potential new entrepreneurs are stifled by several unnecessary and outdated state and district policies, and an education system that remains as a whole insensitive to performance and quality.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) has called a special session of the California legislature in order to take up reforms that would make the state eligible for the funding.

TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY: The administration’s reform agenda also focuses on teacher accountability and the possibility of implementing pay-for-performance for teachers. As Center for American Progress Associate Director for Teacher Quality Robin Chait explained, “there are a number of examples throughout the country that show that this strategy can work. For example, in Chicago, preliminary research findings show that the pay-for-performance program there has increased teacher retention and provided more support for new teachers. In Denver and in Guilford County, the programs there are having a positive impact on student achievement.” Plus, the Teacher Advancement Program — under which trained evaluators visit a teacher’s classroom four to six times a year — “has had a positive impact on student achievement in a number of schools throughout the country.” But not only do some states bar student performance from being used in teacher assessments, but most teacher evaluations provide very little in terms of real information. Currently, in school districts that use binary evaluation ratings (satisfactory or unsatisfactory), “more than 99 percent of teachers receive the satisfactory rating.” In districts that have a wider array of rating options, “94 percent of teachers receive one of the top two ratings and less than 1 percent are rated unsatisfactory.” As Andrew Rotherham at Eduwonk put it, “[D]espite all the rhetoric about how important teachers are and despite the importance of people in a labor-intensive field like education, the lack of systematic attention to teacher effectiveness in education is shocking.”