If President Obama is seeking common ground with Republicans in the next Congress, one major domestic issue seems ripe for deal-making: education.
Obama aides say the administration plans early next year to accelerate its push for a rewrite of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law. That effort will face plenty of obstacles from both sides of the aisle in a divided Congress.
But key Republican lawmakers appear receptive to the president's overtures on education reform in part because Obama backs teacher performance pay, charter schools and other innovations that challenge union orthodoxy.
"This is a top, top priority for the president," said Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. "This is and has been a bipartisan issue. We think it transcends ideology."
Great! Gridlock on everything except expanding unproven or disproven education reforms!
Change I can believe in!
Valerie Strauss points out that the new Republican education committee chair in the House doesn't sound all that likely to reach out on too many issues:
The man expected to be the new chairman of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), just advanced his broad priorities for education policy in the next Congress: “reform that restores local control, empowers parents, lets teachers teach, and protects taxpayers.”
...
He said No Child is "a very large intrusion into education, into areas of education that the federal government shouldn’t be involved. This isn’t just Republican dissatisfaction. When I talk to teachers, parents, superintendents, my colleagues, everyone wants to fix No Child Left behind. There is great dissatisfaction with No Child Left Behind."
...
said in the interview that the adequate yearly progress provision in NCLB was too restrictive: “Where I’m from in Minnesota, that guarantees that every public school in America is failing.”
He also said he thought Congress was “irresponsible” when it gave "with no strings attached" Education Secretary Arne Duncan billions of dollars for his Race to the Top initiative, a contest that pitted states against each other for federal money to enact reforms that Duncan liked.
Kline supports some provisions in Race to the Top, including an expansion of charter schools. But he is skeptical about the Common Core standards movement, which was also promoted in Race to the Top, because, he said, it is a move toward “creating a common curriculum,” which he opposes. To date, 37 states and territories and the District of Columbia have voluntarily adopted the K-12 standards written for math and English-language arts.
Republicans, he said, prefer local control, on which he has been working since he first joined the Education and Labor Committee in 2003, after NCLB was passed. Kline was initially willing to give NCLB a chance, but became an opponent to its prescriptive measures.
There is, of course, some tension between allowing unfettered charter school expansion and giving local districts more control, because many local public school officials don't want more charters in their areas. Kline acknowledged as much in the interview but offered no solution.
I don't know about you, but I don't hear any slam dunk from Kline on working with Obama to continue RttT, add more federal standardized test mandates, etc.
Yes, charter schools will flourish if Kline gets his way, but what's different about that? They're ALREADY flourishing under Obama.
Also, the Senate will have just a slim Democratic majority. Trying to get ANYTHING through a nearly deadlocked Senate will be a Herculean feat.
I am going to call the White House today and let them know that bipartisan work with the GOP to expand charter schools, merit pay and other "reforms" will ensure I WORK AGAINST Barack Obama in 2012.
I am going to mention how Russ Feingold and Howard Dean seem open to primary challenges, so that will be the FIRST way I will work against Obama.
I will also call both the NEA and the AFT and say they had better tell Obama if he promotes and signs anti-teacher programs and policies, they will work AGAINST him in 2012.
Unfortunately the unions don't seem to get it on this point.
The NEA for some inexplicable reason worked to re-elect one of the most virulently anti-teacher senators, Michael Bennet.
That to me is insane behavior akin to co-dependency.
But more on that later today.
Suffice to say for now that it is time to let Obama know that if he continues to screw the 3 million teachers in this country, they will SCREW HIM BACK.
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