November 7, 2008 by Cool Reform Chick
Dan Lungren (R-CA)
Tom McClintock (R-CA)
Jared Polis (D-CO)
Mike Pence (R-IN)
Mary Fallin (R-OK)
Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
You might be wondering what these names have in common. While not an exhaustive list, they are a few of the members of Congress just elected or re-elected, upon whom education reformers can squarely count to advance better educational opportunities for all children – by leadership and votes. They were elected despite those views, always a good sign.
These folks differ on NCLB greatly, but on charter school and school choice issues their support has been solid. They’ll need reassurances, however, and reminders and occasional challenges when they get caught up in the onslaught of issues they face.
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Tags: charter school, Congress, NCLB, school choice
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November 6, 2008 by cer08
Ten years ago I wrote No Excuses to prove once and for all that there was no excuse for the failure of most public schools to teach poor minority children. The great lesson of the last ten years is that all across the county there are schools that provide life-saving educations for children whom the system would deem uneducable, but in order to achieve their outstanding outcomes, these schools often have to buck the system, beat the system, or break with the system altogether.
A great thing happened last night: a young black man was elected President of the United States and now young black men the entire country over can aspire to the highest office in the land. In this country, however, tens of thousands of public schools fail to provide an adequate education to over 13 million low-income children—many of whom are young black men.
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November 5, 2008 by Reformer Red
According to the Jackson Hole Star Tribune, Wyoming Representative Amy Edmonds won her re-election bid last night with 54 percent of the vote compared to her opponent Katherine Van Dell polling at 46 percent.
Why do we care about the results of one house district in Laramie County? Because education reform was front and center in this nail biting race. Edmonds, who will now enter her second term in the Wyoming legislature, took the state house by storm last session when she introduced bold charter school legislation that was only one vote shy of a 2/3rd majority for introduction in a 20-day budget session.
Since then, Edmonds has canvassed the state with her call to action and has remained a true champion of school choice, accountability and teacher initiatives that will matter most for Wyoming’s future. However, it didn’t take long for the state’s teachers union to take notice that Edmonds posed a real threat to the status quo. Backing former union member Katherine Van Dell, the Wyoming Education Association pulled out all the stops in House District 12 including bringing Governor Dave Freudenthal in to go door-to-door stumping for their pick to unseat Edmonds. Yet that union muscle didn’t sway voters who, according to a recent statewide poll, 76 percent support allowing communities to create public charter schools.
With at least one other reform candidate returning to the U.S. Senate, education wins big in the Cowboy State.
Check out Representative Amy Edmonds in action at CER’s June 2008 Leaders Forum.
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November 5, 2008 by reformflak
A measure that would have given pay increases to teachers based on their performance in the classroom and not just seniority failed in the Beaver State last night 59 percent to 41 percent. But does it really mean that Oregonians don’t like the idea of linking teacher pay to hard work? Not really.
Over 59 percent of respondents to a national poll supported the idea of linking pay to performance and even President-elect Obama stumped for merit-pay proposals. But we also know that the referendum results have nothing to do with teacher quality or school reform and more to do with how voters get their information. As the blog Edspresso once reported:
“If you have 30 minutes to sit down with each voter – like you would with a legislator – you can make a strong case for why these reforms are important. But with voters, it’s all about five-second sound bites. The ‘this destroys public schools’ argument, no matter how bogus, rings clearer in voters minds than anything reformers can come up with.”
This is not a shot to performance pay, but a testament to the fact that we need to do even more to raise awareness about reforms that work.
Tags: awareness, barack obama, merit-pay, oregon, performance-pay, reform, voter
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November 5, 2008 by Reformer Red
While most news outlets and sports blogs this morning are focusing on his NBA basketball career, we’re praising the 15 point mayoral victory of education reformer Kevin Johnson over incumbent Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo. While Johnson is known for being one of the NBA’s greatest point guards, his true claim to fame is (or ought to be) his successful charter school organization, St. Hope Academy, serving nearly 1,500 disadvantaged students in Sacramento. With this dynamic leader at the helm we’re anxious to see if he’ll follow Mayors Adrian Fenty of D.C. and Michael Bloomberg of NYC and take mayoral control of Sacramento’s troubled school system to institute widespread reform. We’ll just have to wait and see…
Tags: education reform, election, mayor, sacramento, st. hope academy
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November 5, 2008 by Cool Reform Chick
“The party founded on the values of self reliance and national unity… those are values we all share… and while the Democratic party claims those values tonight, we do so with a measure of humility…” President-elect Barack Obama
The Center for Education Reform (CER) salutes the President-elect, Barack Obama, whose victorious grassroots and media effort to win election is one that all of us involved in education reform should consider in any effort we undertake from this day forward. Door to door, store to bus-stop, Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, the Obama campaign is a reminder that to get the attention of the people and secure their support, we must do more than send out a few missives by email, or even wait for solutions to come our way.
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Tags: barack obama, Campaign, education reform, election, George W. Bush, grassroots, john mccain, media, President
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November 5, 2008 by Cool Reform Chick
“Are the stars out tonight, I don’t know if it’s cloudy or bright, but I only have eyes for you….dear…” (best put to music!)
Then again, out of the eleven gubernatorial races this year, only two of five reformers who could have become governor (in some cases, again) have won, both of whom were incumbents. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was re-elected, along with Utah Governor Jon Huntsmen, who won a commanding 76 percent over Bob Springmeyer in a state whose education reforms have been tenuous, but at least there have been attempts to change.
Speaking of change, if we’re gong to have real education reform, we need more governors who are willing to buck conventional wisdom.
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Tags: charter school, choice, election, governor, North Carolina, Utah, Washington
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November 4, 2008 by cer08
Be sure to check out all of our election night analysis and commentary right here on the blog and over at CER’s 2008 Election Center. We stay stay up so you don’t have to…
Two other intrepid bloggers are getting ready to tape their eyelids open in an effort to help you understand the results of the evening as well. Take a moment to visit Alyson and Michele over on EdWeek’s Campaign K-12.
(Then come right back here…)
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November 3, 2008 by Cool Reform Chick
The Ohio union lady had it right.
Did I just say that???
Yep, you betcha (for you Sarah fans out there). Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers has taken issue with ads by the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, boasting that both presidential candidates are all about high quality charters. In other words, charters win no matter what!
Sue knows better, and believe you me, those union leaders don’t endorse candidates lightly. This union president told Education Week, that “yes, (Obama) would support increasing federal dollars, and he would support increasing the number of charters, but that was with the caveat that he would hold them accountable and…those that are not educating our students [would be closed.]”
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Tags: accountability, barack obama, charter school, National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, ohio, Ohio Federation of Teachers, Sarah Palin, Sue Taylor, Ted Strickland
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October 29, 2008 by cer08
In response to our Candidate Scorecard released earlier this week to assess the degree to which candidates for the U.S. Senate support education reform, we have received a landslide of commentary from across the great state of Colorado suggesting that we were too hard on Bob Schaffer. Citing his strong record as a school choice advocate, the role he played in the formation of Colorado’s original charter school law, and the fact that “all five of his children have been educated in charter schools,” many have gone so far as to demand that we revise our scoring in his case and “correct your mistake in a public forum.” First, a quick overview of the facts:
The Center for Education Reform gave candidate Schaffer a 6 out of a possible score of 9. His opponent, Mark Udall, received a 3 out of 9. To be clear, candidate Schaffer received a perfect 3 out of 3 for his reform-minded position on school choice and another perfect 3 out of 3 for his strong stance on the charter school program. As Jeanne Allen, the president and founder of the Center has written in some personal correspondence on this issue “I’m happy to reiterate to anyone that Bob Schaffer is a great supporter of school choice and the U.S. Senate would be lucky to have him.”
This said, The Center for Education Reform did not give Schaffer its highest marks based on his stance on NCLB. This is important because NCLB is important. On 12/13/01, according to Roll Call 497, Schaffer voted “No” to the House agreement to NCLB. Schaffer was one of only 41 Representatives to vote No. According to our Scorecard methodology, a simple vote for or against garners a possible 3 points. On NCLB, his vote against earned Schaffer a zero.
In this last week before the election next Tuesday, The Center for Education Reform looks forward to seeing Senator Schaffer in Washington next year and to working with him to support the reauthorization of NCLB and to further expanding his reputation as a real reformer.
Tags: Bob Schaffer, Candidate Scorecard, Center for Education Reform, charter school, election Senate, NCLB, school choice
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Dan Lungren (R-CA)
