The Education Debates
My post-doc adviser, Linda Darling-Hammond, is Barack Obama's education adviser and his presumed pick for Secretary of Education. Last night, she debated McCain's education adviser, Lisa Graham Keegan, at Teacher's College (Columbia University).
Unfortunately, the debate was not televised, but you can view the webcast of the debate online at EdWeek. I just watched it tonight and have been sweating it out. Debates are so much more stressful when you know the person involved! I felt really emotionally invested.
Lisa Graham Keegan is an Arizona state bureaucrat with significant education experience. Education Week named Linda Darling-Hammond as one of the ten most influential people in U.S. education (the only full-time academic to make the list). I thought LDH did really well. She cited a crazy number of statistics (which she knows completely off the top of her head because she is horrifyingly brilliant), and did a much better job than Keegan at citing specific examples of how and what Obama plans to fund for education.
Keegan also did well. She comes across as very polished - almost corporate - and speaks very crisply. And I think her ideas sound compelling and innovative. But as an education policy researcher, I thought that many of her ideas were not backed by sound research about what we know works in education. For example, Keegan kept emphasizing the importance of school choice (charter schools and vouchers) and pay-for-performance. I'll grant that these are "maverick" policy positions, but LDH had sound research-based rebuttals for each point. For example, there are mixed results about charter school efficacy. My favorite LDH sound bite: "Choice doesn't do much if all it does is move around the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Keegan talked a lot about how we don't need to spend more money in education to improve outcomes...we just need to spend it more efficiently (since the 1960s, per pupil expenditures have increased exponentially, while student achievement remains relatively flat). I thought she did a good job arguing about efficiency.
LDH agreed that money needed to be spent more efficiently, and gave concrete examples of how funding could be directed to produce the desired outcomes. LDH also talked about how we need to make investments in education in order to reduce future costs to society (like the costs of the penitentiary system...she cited how some states use 3rd grade student achievement scores to predict how to budget for the number of prison beds they will need later on...crazy!).
There was an awkward moment when LDH cited a study by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) about how the Washington, DC charter school movement did not improve student achievement. Keegan responded by saying that IES - a branch of the federal government - was an anti-charter institution. LDH said "IES is the federal government!" It was a big mistake on Keegan's part...she should know exactly what IES is, considering it is one of the major players in the federal education policy arena. People in the audience actually started laughing in disbelief when Keegan made that comment. (After, Keegan didn't have a very good response when asked about how IES would prioritize the federal government's research priorities).
Overall, I thought both did pretty well in the debate. But I can't help but wonder how much any president - or the federal government, for that matter - can achieve in education. States control most of what happens in their schools. So to a large extent, I think it's a little bit useless, for example, to talk about pay for performance when states would have to enact them within the strictures of their collective bargaining agreements. Or to talk about raising standards when states set their own standards and create their own assessments. Talking about how to use titled funding (Title I, Title II, etc.) is productive, but I'm not sure about the rest of it.
A final note: Keegan rudely interrupted LDH a few times, which I found distasteful. And she also talked about how "Hispanics in Arizona" needed representation for "their" schools. I found the reference fugly. I fully acknowledge that school segregation is a sad reality. But it was just something in the way she said it - like she was talking about "them" as an "other" or something. It came across not only as entitled...but also like she tacitly accepts that this is the way things are.
Also, her statement about how a student in a low-income school could come home with an "A" on an assignment that would be a "C" in any high-income school. It really rubbed me the wrong way. She should have said "low-achieving" and "high-achieving" instead of "low-income" and "high-income". Yes, there is a correlation between income and achievement. But there are a significant number of low-income, high-achieving students. And comments like that are insulting. I don't mean to mine this comment too much. But I do feel like her words revealed her personal biases, and I found that to be YUCKY POOPOO.
P.S. I love to end all discussions with YUCKY POOPOO these days. It really helps put things in perspective.
Unfortunately, the debate was not televised, but you can view the webcast of the debate online at EdWeek. I just watched it tonight and have been sweating it out. Debates are so much more stressful when you know the person involved! I felt really emotionally invested.
Lisa Graham Keegan is an Arizona state bureaucrat with significant education experience. Education Week named Linda Darling-Hammond as one of the ten most influential people in U.S. education (the only full-time academic to make the list). I thought LDH did really well. She cited a crazy number of statistics (which she knows completely off the top of her head because she is horrifyingly brilliant), and did a much better job than Keegan at citing specific examples of how and what Obama plans to fund for education.
Keegan also did well. She comes across as very polished - almost corporate - and speaks very crisply. And I think her ideas sound compelling and innovative. But as an education policy researcher, I thought that many of her ideas were not backed by sound research about what we know works in education. For example, Keegan kept emphasizing the importance of school choice (charter schools and vouchers) and pay-for-performance. I'll grant that these are "maverick" policy positions, but LDH had sound research-based rebuttals for each point. For example, there are mixed results about charter school efficacy. My favorite LDH sound bite: "Choice doesn't do much if all it does is move around the deck chairs on the Titanic."
Keegan talked a lot about how we don't need to spend more money in education to improve outcomes...we just need to spend it more efficiently (since the 1960s, per pupil expenditures have increased exponentially, while student achievement remains relatively flat). I thought she did a good job arguing about efficiency.
LDH agreed that money needed to be spent more efficiently, and gave concrete examples of how funding could be directed to produce the desired outcomes. LDH also talked about how we need to make investments in education in order to reduce future costs to society (like the costs of the penitentiary system...she cited how some states use 3rd grade student achievement scores to predict how to budget for the number of prison beds they will need later on...crazy!).
There was an awkward moment when LDH cited a study by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) about how the Washington, DC charter school movement did not improve student achievement. Keegan responded by saying that IES - a branch of the federal government - was an anti-charter institution. LDH said "IES is the federal government!" It was a big mistake on Keegan's part...she should know exactly what IES is, considering it is one of the major players in the federal education policy arena. People in the audience actually started laughing in disbelief when Keegan made that comment. (After, Keegan didn't have a very good response when asked about how IES would prioritize the federal government's research priorities).
Overall, I thought both did pretty well in the debate. But I can't help but wonder how much any president - or the federal government, for that matter - can achieve in education. States control most of what happens in their schools. So to a large extent, I think it's a little bit useless, for example, to talk about pay for performance when states would have to enact them within the strictures of their collective bargaining agreements. Or to talk about raising standards when states set their own standards and create their own assessments. Talking about how to use titled funding (Title I, Title II, etc.) is productive, but I'm not sure about the rest of it.
A final note: Keegan rudely interrupted LDH a few times, which I found distasteful. And she also talked about how "Hispanics in Arizona" needed representation for "their" schools. I found the reference fugly. I fully acknowledge that school segregation is a sad reality. But it was just something in the way she said it - like she was talking about "them" as an "other" or something. It came across not only as entitled...but also like she tacitly accepts that this is the way things are.
Also, her statement about how a student in a low-income school could come home with an "A" on an assignment that would be a "C" in any high-income school. It really rubbed me the wrong way. She should have said "low-achieving" and "high-achieving" instead of "low-income" and "high-income". Yes, there is a correlation between income and achievement. But there are a significant number of low-income, high-achieving students. And comments like that are insulting. I don't mean to mine this comment too much. But I do feel like her words revealed her personal biases, and I found that to be YUCKY POOPOO.
P.S. I love to end all discussions with YUCKY POOPOO these days. It really helps put things in perspective.
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