UPDATED: NUT Report: Republican Candidate Views on Education Reform

While the media remains deaf, dumb, and blind when it comes to education reform, a growing corp of smart fact-based bloggers keep the rest of us informed. Some are conservative and some are liberal, but all are concerned about the current federal education policies.

Shane Vander Hart of Caffeinated Thoughts interviewed several Republican candidates for President regarding their views on education and posted on Truth in American Education.

Michelle Bachmann

Vander Hart's interview with Michelle Bachmann, including a video, is found here. Bachmann proposes the end of the U.S. Department of Education, does not like NCLB, and says this about education:

“I am not a fan of No Child Left Behind, I never have been. I oppose the federal government’s involvement in local schools. I attended great public schools in Iowa when I first started my education. I was here (in Waterloo) for kindergarten through sixth grade. They were great public schools because they were locally controlled and locally put together by our local schools… by our parents and by our teachers and local administrators. Now with the federal government taking more and more authority away from the local schools, it is very hard to have meaningful change in our schools. I would prefer to see the Federal Department of Education abolished and done away with, and instead I’d rather see parents and states keep the monies that are sent to Washington, D.C. It ends up in the bureaucracy.

Rick Santorum

The interview with Rick Santorum is found here and reveals that Santorum disapproves with top down education regulation and points to parents as the most important element in education.

SVH: “In your opinion, the federal government should or shouldn’t advance core curriculum standards?”

Santorum: “No. I mean I don’t think that is their role. I think that the federal government’s role, if there is any, as I would see it, is to get the school systems to focus on parent-centered education. And say that we’re going to back off all of these ‘this is how you have to this and this and this’ and say let’s just get to where every parent at the beginning of the school year, a couple months before the school year and sits down with the administrator or somebody and says ‘this is what we are going to do for your kids and the school system. We are going to take it plan by plan, and we are going to design the plan and that means if they are going to go to West Des Moines Elementary then that’s great. Because you know what? That may fit Suzy best.’ There may be a Christian school where Mom and Dad may think she’ll do better or homeschool where she’ll do better or Catholic school where she’ll do better. Then the responsibility for the school is to help you. There may be resources we can give you. There may be remedial programs…’ Design a program that fits. You may say, ‘well you can’t do that it’s just too complicated.”

Mitt Romney

This isn't an interview, but rather a report. Vander Hart refers to Romney's response to a question he answered in New Hampshire and to his response to a similar question in March 2010 in a Cavuto interview. The answers are not the same.
Read more here.
View the town hall Q&A here. The question is posed by a representative of New Hampshire non-profit Cornerstone Action.

Tim Pawlenty

UPDATE: Another post from Vander Hart with a video of candidate Tim Pawlenty answering a question on education. View the video here.


Rick Perry

Although reported as still considering a run for President, Texas Governor Rick Perry made the news on the education front. He has decided to quit the Council of State Chief Officers because he disagrees with the national common core standard initiative.
Read about Perry's announcement on Scathing Purple Musings.


Newt Gingrich

More reporting from Vander Hart covering candidate Newt Gingrich on his views of education. The full report and an audio file are available here.

Gingrich would return most of the power of the Department of Education and send it back to "states, local communities, and citizens." He also opposes a national core curriculum.

Military Base Schools: Deteriorated and Unsafe

Newsweek reports that the children of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq have been attending schools in such deteriorated conditions, they do not seem fit for use.

The Pentagon acknowledges it has a significant problem, as nearly $4 billion in needed renovations and new construction at its schools have piled up during a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Military officials’ own reports to Congress in 2008 and 2009 show as many as three quarters of base schools the Pentagon operates are either beyond repair or would require extensive renovation to meet minimum standards for safety, quality, accessibility, and design.

The Defense Department’s education agency concedes it “cannot keep pace with the types of renovations and maintenance needed when a school building goes beyond its useful life and the age of the building becomes a barrier to using these dollars wisely.”

About half the military schools the agency operates are at least 45 years old. Nonetheless, the DOD education office insists “none of our schools is unsafe, and no school is a hazard to anyone.”

None unsafe? I wonder what termite infested and leaking buildings are for safe environments for working and studying.

"At Fort Riley in Kansas, students drink water tainted brown from corroding pipes, while at Fort Stewart in Georgia, mold that grew on walls and sprouted from floors was so serious at one school that the library had to be shuttered for emergency cleanup."

In spite of the The 1978 Defense Dependents’ Education Act that requires the military to provide “academic services of a high quality” to the children of soldiers on active duty, these problems go unaddressed. According the this Newsweek report, a 1988 Defense Department directive went further, broadly guaranteeing military families “a quality of life that reflects the high standards and pride of the nation they defend”—including education.

$10 billion a month is the cost of the war and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Billions more have been allocated for reforming the so-called education crisis through the development of national standards and a new generation of assessments. The war has gone on for ten years now and the obligation to military families is ignored for the last decade. Where's the accountability?

Soldiers and their families are sacrificing, while their children are going to schools that are falling apart. How can we talk about first class education in a first world nation with decaying infrastructure? Shouldn't we put the buildings in order before we plunk billions in a new generation of national tests? Who will speak up for these children?

Read more...

Libertartian View: Federal Role in Education

Mark Grannis ran for U.S. Congress in Maryland with a Less We Can platform. He didn't get elected, but does represent a Libertarian view of the federal role in education.



What do you think the federal role should be?

Hat tip to Missouri Education Watchdog.

Rep. Kline on Arne Duncan: "He's Not the Nation's Superintendent."

When the U.S. Congress did not meet the administration's deadline for reauthorization and changes to the regulations under No Child Left Behind, Duncan decided to have Plan B. The Secretary would give States waivers in meeting those regulations IF they agreed to adopt the Common Core Standards. He was within his regulatory power to grant waivers, but seems to have crossed the line into legislative powers. Now U.S. Representative John Kline, the Chair of the House Education committee took notice:

“Unquestionably, Congress gave the secretary way too much authority in the stimulus bill when it said, ‘Here’s $5 billion, go do good things for education,’ ” Mr. Kline said.

States are not running to the waiver offer. Idaho Superintendent of Education, Tom Luna, decided not to follow the NCLB and is not asking permission, apparently not interested in Duncan's waiver. Read the details at Missouri Education Watchdog.

Boosting A Skilled Blue-Collared Workforce: Where are the jobs?

President Obama announced a new initiative aimed at increasing community college preparation of skilled blue-collar workers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the President is joined by the chief executive of Motorola Solutions, Inc., a co-founder of Groupon Inc., and the chairman of Accenture PLC (ACN) to help get community-college students into manufacturing jobs. No federal funding is attached to this initiative.

While driving this week, I bumped into the Diane Rehm show with a discussion on education efforts by The Manufacturing Institute, which is an affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers that hosts 12,000 manufacturing members. The institute is partnering with community colleges all across the country to take industry-recognized, nationally portable manufacturing skills credentials right into the degree programs in community colleges. Rehm interviews those involved who describe certificate programs that community college students can follow that ensure they have the skills for the manufacturing-oriented jobs that are required in their area.

You can also listen to the show here.

Read the transcript here.

Interesting comments on the show can be found here.

I was left with questions:

1) What happened to vocational education in U.S. high schools?
2) Is this a sign that manufacturers may bring back jobs that they shipped overseas?
3) With the large pool of unemployed workers, is it geography that keeps the existing talent pool remote from where the jobs are now?
4) With a reported 11% of returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan unemployed, is this not a skilled workforce to fill the manufacturing jobs? Where are these jobs?
5) With recent college grads saddled with student debt and unable to get a part time job as a dishwasher, is this not a skilled workforce? Where are these jobs?
6) With the deep layoffs from the Space Program, no doubt about it a highly skilled workforce with applicable skills, these workers are now thrown into unemployment? Where are the jobs?

While plans speed along with this community college initiative to prepare new workers for vague future opportunities to avert a workforce "crisis", are we saying that the current skilled workforce is a lost generation? I am unconvinced that high school grads and their families today should have any confidence that supports getting saddled with more student loan and debt on preparation for jobs that cannot be identified. Sorry, I don't buy this "crisis" story line. Where are all these manufacturing jobs that are going unfilled?

Update: Washington DC Erasure Investigation

Facts have not emerged on the D.C.'s Inspector General regarding the erasures detected on standardized tests at nearly half of D.C.'s schools, but the investigation continues.
However, the USA Today, which initially reported the serious irregularities, reports the resignation of Wayne Ryan. No explanation for the resignation is available. Ryan was promoted to instructional superintendent last year. Previously, he was principal of Noyes Educational Campus from 2001-2010. Standardized test scores were high at the school; however, nearly 3/4 of Noyes classes were flagged for erasures from 2008-2010.

"....the school had been touted by former chancellor Michelle Rhee as a model of school reform. He was lauded for dramatic increases in test scores, which earned the school a federal Blue Ribbon award in 2009.

The school's staff won thousands of dollars in bonuses because of the improvement.

Ryan and the school were the centerpiece of the school system's staff recruitment ads in 2008 and 2009."

Read more....

UPDATE: Reporting on continuing Atlanta investigations
A staff member of Internal Investigations claims to have been ordered by the Superintend to destroy evidence.

Lawyers for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained a copy of the letter and related documents, which came to light in a criminal investigation of cheating by teachers and school administrators on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test. A team of special investigators, appointed last August when state officials found the district’s own inquiry inadequate, is expected to report its findings to Gov. Nathan Deal this month, which could result in prosecutions of district officials. The investigators declined to comment Tuesday.

Read more....

New Florida Commissioner of Education Named

Gerard Robinson is the new Florida Commissioner of Education by unanimous vote of the Florida State School Board this morning. Robinson is Virginia's Secretary of Education. Read more....

In a May 2011 press release announcing a speaking engagement, Mr. Robinson is described this way:

"Robinson, who began his career as an educator in Los Angeles, is a nationally-recognized expert on the modern charter school movement and serves on the Policy Advisory Council at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and on the board of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Charter School Resource Center. He is the author of numerous publications and has travelled extensively in the U.S. and abroad giving formal and informal presentations about education and public policy.

Robinson received a Master of Education degree from Harvard University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University, and an Associate of Arts degree from El Camino Community College. He is married and has three daughters."

More from the Orlando Sentinel here.