(From The Indianapolis Star, September 11, 2009)
By RUSS PULLIAM
He has made a mess of health-care reform, but President Barack Obama also has opened a wide door to real educational reform, in a manner that is startling for a Democrat.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is using federal grants to link better teacher pay with improved student test results. With the Race for the Top program, Duncan has $4.3 billion to encourage states to promote charter schools and remove barriers to merit pay.
It’s sweet encouragement to top Republicans in Indiana, including Gov. Mitch Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett.
“When it comes to education, I think they clearly have it right,” Bennett says.
“Arne Duncan is the right person for the right job,” he adds, citing Duncan’s leadership of the Chicago school system. “He brings an incredible amount of integrity and credibility to the task. He is very student-centered. He is inserting competition, freedom and accountability into the system.”
Obama’s own rhetoric this week echoed Duncan’s approach. His speech to schoolchildren was what any wise parent would want his children to hear.
Reflecting on his own single-parent background, he offered a little sympathy with tough love. “At the end of the day, the circumstances of your life — what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home — that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude,” Obama said.
With the country sharply divided over health care, what brings this educational harmony?
Conservative activist Eric Miller wonders whether Obama really will give up so much of what Democrats have traditionally advocated. “It’s great if it works the way they are saying,” Miller said. “But it doesn’t match up with his philosophy on the role of government, that government must be in control.”
Another explanation is that Obama really is the pragmatist he promised in his campaign, borrowing from left and right for what works.
He also has not completely forgotten his teachers union friends. He signed legislation to kill a District of Columbia program giving low-income parents a private school option.
Democrats are engaged in an internal debate over education — with unions on one side and reformers like Duncan on the other. The reformers have become better organized in recent years, with groups such as Democrats for Education Reform, a political action committee headed by Kevin Chavous, an Indianapolis native. Chavous practices law in Washington and has served on the City Council there. His group wants teacher performance and pay tied to student test results, along with more charter schools.
Obama, who is letting Duncan call the educational plays for the administration, is, at least for now, siding with the reformers.