(From Education Next, Winter 2010/Vol. 10, No. 1)
By JOE WILLIAMS and PEDRO NOGUERA
Since the run-up to the 2008 election, the Democratic Party has been home to two prominent and very different reform wings. One, spearheaded by the group Democrats for Education Reform and notable school-district chiefs like New York’s Joel Klein and Washington, D.C.’s Michelle Rhee, is the Education Equality Project (EEP). The other, A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), is a coalition of education scholars and Democratic thinkers, including Duke University’s Helen Ladd, former president of Columbia University’s Teachers College Arthur Levine, and New York University professor Pedro Noguera.
The Education Equality Project champions accountability, pay reform, and school choice, while the Broader, Bolder coalition insists we must attend to health care, preschool, and parenting skills if students are to succeed in school. The Obama administration must negotiate this split in pursuing education reform; indeed, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was the only individual to serve as a founding member of both groups.
In this forum, president of Democrats for Education Reform Joe Williams speaks for the Education Equality Project and Pedro Noguera offers the Broader, Bolder perspective on improving K-12 schooling, the early record of the Obama administration, and the challenges that lie ahead.
Education Next: What principles unify the signers of the coalition [Education Equality Project or A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education]? Can you explain the key reforms the coalition is calling for?