The indispensable Politics K-12 blog at EdWeek did its best to crash yesterday’s meeting between Education Secretary Arne Duncan and state education chiefs. They weren’t allowed in for the whole thing, but they caught enough to pinpoint where the tension is likely to be in the attempts to make sure that the nation doesn’t waste this historic opportunity (via the stimulus festivus) to both create new jobs and push/require meaningful reforms.
A few snippits:
“We’re going to have a much higher bar than other folks [receiving stimulus money],” Duncan told the chiefs. “We need to create jobs, and we need to get dramatically better.”
Biden pledged the administration’s continued support-so long as all of this money translates into results.
“This is going to be an education administration,” Biden said. “But we want to begin to change the script, demand more of everyone. We expect a hell of a lot more.”
Reporter Michelle McNeil then gets to the heart of the matter, asking Duncan how the feds would demand more, and noted that his answer included the word “ask.” (Question: Were states and districts politely “asking” for this bailout, or “demanding” it?)
We have some thoughts on how the bar should be raised by the federal government at this historic time in our latest memo on the stimulus festivus.