Happy Thanksgiving!

Even if I had the power to pardon, I wouldn't pardon this Turkey. But I'll bet that plenty of turkeys will be pardoned between now and January 20, 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends, loyal readers, and even the folks who discover our blog by searching for things like "What does Palin read?" and "Jill Biden is hot."

Despite the turmoil our country is in at the moment, we can still be thankful for the hope and promise that the recent election instilled in many of us. And for one another. Please enjoy the company of your loved ones over the Thanksgiving holiday.

We'll talk to you again in December.

Musical Elective Of The Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is Amos Lee.

Amos Lee is a Philadelphia native and has built a larger and larger fan base with the release of each of his three albums. His latest offering is Last Days At The Lodge (released in June 2008) and -- based on his recent concert here in Madison -- he has never been stronger and more confident as a live artist. He just wrapped up a U.S. tour with a five-piece band. His new album includes the tracks "Listen," "What's Been Going On," and "Street Corner Preacher."

Lee's music is a blend of acoustic rock, rock, folk, soul, and jazz. Supply and Demand -- Lee's second full-length album -- was released in 2006, featuring the recognizable "Shout Out Loud" and the title track. But do not overlook "Careless," "Night Train," and "Southern Girl." It was preceded by the eponymous Amos Lee in 2005, which was chock full of melodic hooks on the likes of "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight," "Seen It All Before," "Arms of a Woman," and "Soul Suckers," as well as the playful "Bottom Of The Barrel."

Amos Lee really got his break based upon a self-produced 5-song EP that won him a recording contract from Blue Note Records and got the attention of Norah Jones, for whom he opened during her 2004 tour. He was named one of Rolling Stone magazine's "10 Artists to Watch" in 2005.

Unlike many of our featured Musical Electives, Amos Lee truly does have a connection to education. He was a public school teacher in Philadelphia for two years before turning to music as a profession. Here's one former teacher I'm happy to count as a turnover statistic.

There's a whole lot of trouble all around
Every night the same old sirens sound
There's a whole lot of trouble all around
Children soldiers in this battleground
--"Street Corner Preacher," Last Days At The Lodge (2008)

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Extra Credit--Past Musical Electives of the Week:

Susan Tedeschi
Tracy Grammer
Matt Nathanson
Hothouse Flowers
The Decemberists
Ron Sexsmith
Kasey Chambers
Lucinda Williams
Great Big Sea
Griffin House
Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer
Neil Finn
Ray LaMontagne
Stuart Stotts
Dan Wilson
Kathleen Edwards

Don't Know Much About History...

Our Fading Heritage, a new report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute finds that Americans -- including college graduates and elected officials -- don't know much about history or civic literacy, more specifically.

More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI’s basic 33-question test on civic literacy and more than 1,700 people failed, with the average score 49 percent, or an “F.” Elected officials scored even lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent and only 0.8 percent (or 21) of all surveyed earned an “A.” Even more startling is the fact that over twice as many people know Paula Abdul was a judge on American Idol than know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Read the press release for more. And take the quiz yourself. Are you smarter than an elected official? Not to brag, but I got 31 out of 33 for a score of 94%. Beat that!

Teacher Quality and Title II

Education Week published an incredibly important story this week by Stephen Sawchuk ("Spending On Federal Teacher-Quality Funds Questioned") and Education Sector issued an incredibly important report (Title 2.0: Revamping The Federal Role in Education Human Capital) on Title II, Part A dollars in No Child Left Behind. The notion of better utilizing existing resources is especially critical in light of the economic downturn and budgetary challenges which will make new resources harder to come by.

As I wrote in two recent posts ($29 Billion Buys You A New Education System? and Will The New President Support New Educators?), it is abundantly clear that Title II, Part A's $3 billion are not flowing toward the most impactful initiatives in schools and districts. Most are going to class-size reduction and professional development (of questionable quality).

In a nutshell, Education Sector recommends shifting "the federal government’s role from enabler of existing activities largely irrespective of quality to a driver of reform through strategic investments in new initiatives, institutions, and policy schemes to recruit, train, support, and evaluate and compensate teachers."

Easy stuff, right?

Hate Starts Young

Where do kids learn such things (Students Chant 'Assassinate Obama' On School Bus)?

(A) School
(B) Home
(C) Right-wing talk radio

I can't choose between B or C, but I'll bet you it's not at school.

Musical Elective Of The Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is Susan Tedeschi.

One of many talented Boston-area natives and Berklee College of Music grads in the music business, Tedeschi has got an incredible set of pipes, especially for a woman of such small stature. She man-handles the blues, as exemplified by her live performances and also by the 1998 album Just Won't Burn, featuring the tracks "Rock Me Right" and "You Need To Be With Me." "The Feeling Music Brings" off of 2002's Wait For Me is another stellar track. She also nails a cover of Otis Redding's "Security" on her 2005 album, Hope and Desire.

Her latest album, Back To The River, was released on October 28. This Grammy-nominated artist is currently on a tour of the U.S. Sara and I are headed to see her in Madison on Saturday evening. I've only seen her once before -- at a free concert on the grounds of the Portland, Oregon Zoo back in 2007 -- with her husband's band, the Derek Trucks Band. Good stuff.

Check out her web site for more information.

Optimists Among Us

While the Wall Street Journal (channeling the Brookings Institution's Tom Loveless) is pessimistic about the prospects of education policy in an Obama Administration, other policymakers and pundits see the glass as half full.

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former West Virginia governor, is "bullish" on education.

Arne Duncan, Chicago schools chief, and oft-mentioned candidate for a leadership role in an Obama administration, recently said the following (as reported by Alexander Russo):

So this may not be the ideal climate for a discussion on the future of public education. In fact, several recent newspaper articles have suggested that education will not be one of Barack Obama’s top priorities.

I think they are wrong.

As I said previously, education won't be the first horse out of the gate, but it'll be in the race. After all, Linda Darling-Hammond is no shrinking violet. She recently used unflinching language (as reported in David Hoff's Campaign K-12 blog) to express President-elect Obama's continued commitment to education issues. And she should know as she is heading up his Education Policy Working Group during the transition.

Wither Education?

An article ("Obama is Expected to Put Education Overhaul on Back Burner") in today's Wall Street Journal that reads more like an opinion piece than a new story suggests that President-elect Obama will not prioritize education in the face of other policy challenges.

I disagree with the likes of the Brookings Institution's Tom Loveless (my grad school professor) whose comments alone basically provide the article's headline. Loveless says that "he expects Mr. Obama to sidestep most major issues involving public schools and instead focus on small, symbolic initiatives in the mold of former President Bill Clinton's promotion of school uniforms as a way to instill discipline in classrooms." Obama has shown a deep personal commitment to issues involving schools and urban communities as a U.S. Senator and in his prior life. Despite the economic and foreign policy challenges he faces, I don't see Obama walking away from this commitment and interest to focus on marginal educational pronouncements. Deep engagement and substantive proposals may not be offered in his first 100 Days -- a concept that should be left to history books -- or even in his first year in office, but Obama WILL expend political capital on education reform during his presidency.

The wise Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy gets it right on this one. He suggests that Congress will likely take the lead -- especially on contentious issues related to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (AKA NCLB) -- and that President Obama will wait for them to hash out a consensus before acting. In talking to a key Hill staffer in Washington, DC yesterday, however, it is clear that congressional Democrats are looking for signals from an Obama Administration to inform their work. Some core principles from the President will help to influence congressional action and provide structure to an eventual compromise that must win passage in both houses of Congress and earn the president's signature.

So Many Bad Ideas, So Little Time

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is struggling to retain faculty by increasing salaries while simultaneously containing costs. Challenging, to be sure.

But this Capital Times article ("UW Regents weigh pay increases against maintaining costs") reports some unbelievably bad ideas for making it happen. Among them -- reduce the size of the faculty workforce, in order to keep the others' salaries competitive. UW-Madison's provost is quoted as saying, "We'll have fewer heads because we need the money to pay appropriately the faculty that we do have. We don't like that outcome, but if that's what we need to do to maintain quality, that's life, and that's what we have to do."

But a shrinking faculty substantially reduces quality of life for the faculty in ways that even a raise can hardly offset. Take my own department. When I got here in 2004 we had 12 full-time members. Four years later, we're down to 11 with another departing next month. We're searching for two positions, but in the meantime we're operating with 11. And, oh man, even with that "small" reduction, life is challenging. Fewer hands on deck means more service committee assignments, more advisees, fewer classes to offer our students (and therefore longer time-to-degree and more complaints), the need to put more money in the pot to pay for dept functions, more time spent on searches, etc etc. While I've often complained about my salary level, and more importantly lack of increases over the last 4 years (I've gotten in total approx a 4% increase over that entire time), it is much much harder to take because of that increased workload. Honestly, we should get hardship pay just for the reduction in size of the faculty -- not just an increase to keep us from being 15% underpaid compared to our peers!

Another bad idea: Add dependent tuition benefits. In a time when it's more important than ever to target scarce resources to the neediest, moving money to that form of merit-based aid is just silly. Children of faculty are not bad off, they will manage to attend college, and UW-Madison is already a decent deal for those kids who get in-state tuition.

Instead--let's try another approach to increasing faculty retention: REWARD their efforts. Specifically, start by cutting grant getters in on the indirects. No, UW-Madison hardly needs to create an incentive for faculty to seek external funding, but it does need to create an incentive for those with grants to stick around. Those are the folks seeing their market values rise while their salaries remain stagnant. So for the duration of the grant, supplement pay or at least flex funds with 1%. I'm sure the UW could do with just a little bit less, and it'd go a long, long way.

Food for Thought

Edutopia reports on the increasing role of farms or gardens in learning.

In the broadest sense, food-related curricula are based on the idea that we should teach children to make connections between people, land, food, and their community. Eighteen states have adopted Farm to School legislation, which connects local farms with public schools and clears the way for teaching materials concerning agriculture, nutrition, and sustainability. Vermont and a few others have also adopted place-based-learning standards that dovetail with educational programs in school gardens and farms.

Related Posts:
UW-Madison Grad Students Produce Local Food Map
The Edible Schoolyard

What's Next?

Let the prognostication begin!!!

So how does President-elect Obama (boy, that sounds good!) move forward on education given the twin obstacles of a bad economy and a ballooning federal deficit -- along with opportunities presented by the pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (AKA NCLB) in 2009 or 2010 and a Democratic-controlled Congress?

It seems that education will inevitably take a back seat to economic recovery and foreign policy issues (Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, etc.). However, the good news is that some amount of deficit spending on infrastructure and investments in areas such as education will likely occur. I expect to see ESEA reauthorization as the primary vehicle for enactment of many of Obama's k-12 education reform ideas. In addition, Obama will likely rhetorically link education to economic revitalization and future American competitiveness. Aspects of his proposed focus on math and science will find a policy niche here.

A major question, of course, is who will be the next Education Secretary. Easy answer: Probably not someone from Texas. Hard answer: Who exactly from the other 49 states? Well, in my opinion, the likely candidates might include Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, former West Virginia Governor and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education Bob Wise, former New Jersey Governor (a Republican) and Drew University president Tom Kean, former South Carolina Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and Paul Vallas, New Orleans superintendent and former Chicago Public Schools chief.

(UPDATE: Scratch Vallas off the list - he has agreed to stay in New Orleans through the 2009-10 school year. Scratch Napolitano as she has been tapped as Homeland Security secretary.)

I'm not basing these possibilities on any special inside knowledge (c'mon, I live in Wisconsin now -- wadda I know?!?!)-- just an educated guess. So it means that the next Ed Secretary will be someone NOT on this list. Other education leaders who probably won't be appointed Secretary but who are likely to play a important leadership role in the U.S. Department of Education or more broadly in the Obama Administration include Linda Darling-Hammond, Danielle Gray, Heather Higginbottom, Michael Johnston, Andy Rotherham, and Jon Schnur.

OK, that's the Obama side. What about the Republicans? I agree with Eduwonk that the Republican Party is probably headed for what he terms possibility #2.

We could see a return to the slash and burn and culture war approach of the 1990s (or its last gasp). Sarah Palin hasn’t been hostile to public schools in Alaska but if she sees these sorts of politics as a way to a political future in 2012 it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t turn on a dime and others wouldn’t follow. This would mean a lot of ideas to effectively eviscerate the federal role in education, cut spending, devolve authority to the states and so forth. In a tight fiscal climate state “flexibility” can have a siren-like appeal because it gives states more flexibility around using federal dollars to plug other budget holes. The likely lack of Republican moderates on the Hill will only add to this dynamic.

But, if the experience in some states as well as the likely composition of the House and Senate after the dust settles is any guide, I’d bet on the second option. That means a lot of theater, but not good news if you want to see a serious national debate about ideas for improving our public schools.

Don't expect to see a major national debate about education, but probably modest changes to existing policies (a lessening of NCLB's rigid accountability provisions and an increased emphasis on value-added methodologies), some targeted investments (early childhood education, differentiated teacher pay, teacher professional development & support, dropout intervention), a focus on higher education (a college tax credit, financial aid simplification, student success at 2- and 4-year colleges), and, if the economy permits in a couple of years, some greater across-the-board investments.

My overall bet is that education policy will not transform itself nearly as much as some other policy areas -- health care, environment, energy, foreign policy -- under Obama's watch. While I think that Jay Mathews's take on this question in last Friday's Washington Post is a bit strong -- certainly the headline is ("Why The Next Education President Will Be Like Bush") -- he's definitely on the right track.

But the devil is in the details, and I predict that many important changes will be made to improve public education in general and ESEA specifically, enhance the quality of teaching, and create more successful and sensible pathways to higher education over the next four years.

Optimism, indeed, is back.

Oregon Ballot Measure Update

Oregon Ballot Measure No. 60, which would have required that state teachers be paid based on performance and not on experience or seniority, failed on a vote of 40% to 60%.

See previous post ("Teacher Pay on Oregon Ballot").

Hope is Alive

And optimism is back!

I was born 2 days before Carter was inaugurated, far too young to experience that man's presidency. I grew up inside the Beltway, listening to Grandpas Reagan and Bush preach nothing my parents believed in. I cried hard the night Dukakis was defeated, and pretty much gave up. Clinton was no salve-- by then I was old enough to be troubled by a man who clearly couldn't keep his word--not to the woman he fathered a child with, and certainly not to the thousands of poor women across the country whom he sent to work instead of college. He disappointed me time and again; by the end of his term I wished him good riddance.

W was the president that made me feel bitter and hopeless. Cynical, eager to leave the Beltway and DC far behind, dismissive of those who thought they could make a difference by working anywhere near Washington. So I find myself tonight in a small town of 12,000 in Wisconsin-- a safe haven, of sorts.

Now tonight-- the most amazing thing has happened. Despite a persistent black/white gap in educational achievement, the resegregation of our schools, rising tuition and stagnant rates of college completion...I am once again really an optimist! Because it has happened-- America has actively sought to reverse course and right the ship. It's a New Deal for us all-- Barack Hussein Obama is the President-Elect of the United States of America. Michelle Obama is the future First Lady. And the humble, forthright, and sensitive Joe Biden will replace the big Dick as VP.

GLORY GLORY Hallelujah. Obama, thank you for making it clear that this country is worthy of raising my son in.

Sarah Doesn't Speak for Me

I'm so glad to see this campaign season end. So many utterly despicable things have occurred as candidates raged against one another that some days it was hard to even open the paper. Remember Bill's racist slurs in South Carolina? McCain's referring to Obama as "that one" and trying to equate him with terrorists because of his religion? Awful, sad, pathetic.

But what's offended me the most was John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for VP. Obama had just wrapped up an incredibly eye-opening convention that made me think true progress had been made in this country. Then, in an incredible slap across the face to women everywhere, John had the gall to say "Ladies, want to see a woman in the White House? I'll give you a woman.. Here: Caribou Barbie. Go play."

Come on! This woman can barely put one foot in front of the other, let alone read and carefully think through an issue of The Atlantic Monthly. She reads "all" the magazines, gazes out her window at Russia each morning, and most infuriatingly, claims to be a wonderful mom to her special needs infant! Lady, please. You want to stake your claim as Mama of the Year and put fragile babies back on the agenda? Then you'll have to actually walk the walk, by TAKING CARE OF YOUR CHILD instead of running around the country while someone else holds the babe. Special needs babies-- I know something about that. They require lots of active loving, constant holding, nursing, and nearly 24/7 attention. No one can replace Mama in doing that. I did it for 7 months straight. My son grew from 4 lbs to a healthy size, and thrived under my attention.

You can't tell me it's anti-feminist to say she should've been with her kid. No way. It's her right to choose her path, but she can't run for VP and claim to be standing up for special needs babies and their mamas everywhere. Not when she's neglecting hers. I had an 80 hour/week job where the tenure hinged on continuously working, and when my kid needed me I threw it into the wind. Guess what? Not all was lost-- in fact I'm far better off now than I was then. When I say I'm for better work/family policies, I've actually tried both sides--working, and at home-- and a mix of the two.

So no--Sarah doesn't stand for me. John-- whom I was ready to VOTE for until about 8 months ago when he lost his mind-- has completely alienated me. And Mamas everywhere-- you should be offended, pissed, and ready to VOTE AGAINST this hypocrite. Caribou Barbie-- go back to Alaska with your Ken doll. Good riddance!

Education and the Election

Given the tanking economy and the lives of Americans on the line overseas, it is quite understandable why education has gotten short shrift in this presidential campaign. But scratch beneath the surface, and you'll find that it is a high priority for many voters and has received much more attention in state-level campaigns than at the national level.

Education Week provides a nice summary ("Education on the Ballot") of education-related issues on this year's ballots in the 50 states. Here in Wisconsin, the only major race on the ballot is for President--although control of the State Assembly is up for grabs. Our state-level offices are up in non-presidential years and the election for state superintendent of public instruction takes place in April 2009.

Tomorrow I plan to vote for a President with intellectual, moral and leadership abilities that I can be proud of ... with a vice-presidential partner who is ready from day one ... with a once-in-a-generation biography and life story. On education, this individual is clearly engaged and interested in the policy complexity that shapes what 21st Century American schools look like. He understands the importance of the building blocks of good schools ... great teachers, high standards, sustainable funding, engaged leaders, and supportive parents and communities. He is also open to new ways of doing business that puts the interests of students first and the preferences of adults second. I believe that he will build upon and strengthen what is working while looking for new answers to intractable problems.

That individual, of course, is Barack Obama.

I look forward to watching history unfold tomorrow evening and beyond. There will be lots to discuss in the coming days...