Joel Packer: More Than a Vision for 2020, We Have Prizes!

Hi. I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to the podcast. A couple of weeks ago, NEA held our annual Representative Assembly — or RA. I’m always amazed and humbled to see how the RA operates. Nearly 10,000 voting delegates — educators from throughout the country — come together as the largest democratic decision-making body in the world!

At the RA, NEA released a major new policy document called Great Public Schools for Every Student by the Year 2020. You can read all about it and see the whole document on our website at: www.nea.org/lac/federalrole.html.

It’s a bold proposal. NEA believes a "new balance" is needed between federal, state, and local governments and that we collectively commit to making every public school great by the year 2020. The call comes after more than six years of living with the fundamentally flawed federal education law, No Child Left Behind.

The combination of Congress not reauthorizing NCLB this year and the 2008 election created the opportunity for us to take a step back from just changing and tweaking the specifics of the NCLB and instead to take a broader look at the Federal role in elementary and secondary education. So instead of just worrying about changes to Section 1116(a)(2)(B)(vii) of the law, we’re focusing on the fundamentals for what the federal government should concentrate on in K-12 education.

By the way, the first person to correctly identify the gist of Section 1116(a)(2)(B)(vii) wins lunch for two in the NEA cafeteria.

Schools, districts, and states—not the federal government—are the primary engines of public school transformation. But to accelerate the pace of transformation, states and districts need well-designed federal policies to supply the balance of support necessary to deliver quality educational programs for every student in our public schools. Many school, district, and state-level efforts are transforming public schools into high-quality learning centers. But clearly the status quo is not acceptable.

NEA recognizes that there are many out-of-school factors that affect student success, and frankly, the impact of those factors—from poverty to health care, the availability of summer opportunities for students, and the stability of housing—has been wrongly downplayed. Socioeconomic factors need to be addressed as strategies to improve educational opportunity for every student. For too many poor and minority children, "at risk" describes their fate and not simply their circumstances. We are convinced that by improving both children’s circumstances and their schools, we can change their fate.
We call for the federal government to be a partner in supporting state efforts to transform our public schools by focusing on six policy priorities:

1. Support the profession of teaching as a desired and complex field of study and practice. Federal policy should support teachers at every stage of their development, from promoting high standards for entry into the profession, to high-quality professional development for teachers and paraeducators, and supporting research and resources that help educators obtain additional skills and knowledge and contribute to improved teaching practices.


2. Federal guarantee for the sustained funding of Title I and IDEA and for special needs populations. Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have never received the federal funding that the original laws promised. The federal government should close the gap between its commitment and the actual funding so that shortfalls disappear.


3. Equal access to educational services and supports. The federal government should require states, to develop "Adequacy and Equity Plans." Through these plans, states will demonstrate where there are disparities among districts and schools in educational tools and services, as well as opportunities and resources. The plans will outline steps underway or planned to remedy the disparities.
   
   Support state-led public school transformation through authentic accountability that is publicly transparent. The federal government should use ESEA and other federal programs as mechanisms to induce states to devise comprehensive accountability systems that use multiple measures. Such systems should support efforts to guarantee that every student has access to a rich and comprehensive curriculum.


4. Establish high-quality educational research and development as essential to educational improvement. Currently, federal funds allotted for education research account for just 0.9 percent of the federal education investment. The federal government should quadruple the amount of R&D money in education.


5. Support innovation and best practices to accelerate state-based improvement efforts and improve student learning based on proven teaching strategies and programs grounded in sound teaching and learning research.

We are not alone in doing this. The Forum on Education and Democracy recently released its own paper, Democracy At Risk that shares many similarities to ours. The Economic Policy Institute has released A Broader, Bolder Agenda which is also critical of NCLB and calls for a new focus in the federal role. The American Association of School Administrators has its All Children Will Learn plan. Even House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller recently said that it is "time to pause…and rethink" the federal role.

Our policy framework has also picked up support form a range of policy experts and advocates. Jonathan Kozol, author of many books on public education, including Savage Inequalities, said that Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020 "is one of the most powerful, insightful, and forward-thinking documents on public education I have read in many years. Its cutting-edge proposal for a more expanded and enlightened version of accountability — one that includes such elemental inputs as the size of classes, availability of preschools, and conditions of school buildings — represents a major change in thinking that the leaders of our government must not ignore.

Even Senator Obama had this to say in a letter to the RA delegates:

"This document provides a roadmap for educators, elected officials, policymakers, and all who care deeply about the future of our children to consider and debate in the days ahead. And it provides critical starting points for a new educational compact."

We can create a new balance and change the federal role from "test, label, and punish" to one that recognizes our students are more than a test score. To one that respects teachers and education support professionals as professionals. To one that provides us with the tools and resources and funding we need to get the job done. To one that ensures that all children have adequate and equitable funding, services, and programs. And to one that will result in a great public school for every student!!!

I’m Joel Packer. Thanks for listening.