From the News Service of Florida:

Supporters and opponents of the controversial "Common Core" education standards clashed Tuesday in Tampa during the opening stop in a three-day round of public hearings across the state.

Those speaking at the hearing were closely divided among supporters and opponents of the standards, despite conservative and tea-party activists' concerns that Common Core represents a vast federal overreach into local education. About four dozen states have adopted the standards, which were created in a state-led initiative but have been promoted by federal officials and education reform advocates.

The hearings were part of Gov. Rick Scott's plan for dealing with the politically volatile issue. Scott has already begun distancing the state from a consortium developing tests for Common Core, and has suggested the hearing could come up with ways to amend the academic benchmarks.

The meeting featured an at-time raucous audience, with those on both sides of the issue loudly applauding those who agreed with them. (more…)

From the News Service of Florida:

Gov. Rick Scott defended his decision to withdraw from tests linked to setting up a national set of educational standards, while a state lawmaker filed a bill addressing a common concern about the standards.

In his first public comments on the move, Scott on Tuesday explained why he ordered the Department of Education to stop managing the financial affairs of the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, of PARCC, which is developing the tests.

It was seen as a first step toward Florida trying to develop its own tests to measure student learning gains under the "Common Core" standards that Florida and almost four dozen other states have agreed to use.

Scott maintained his stance that using PARCC would allow the federal government to meddle in the state's schools.

"If you look at it, it's their entry point into having more involvement in our education system. ... I want to continue that focus on high standards, but we don't need the federal government intruding in our lives," Scott told reporters.

When pressed, Scott did not say specifically how he thought tests developed through a state-led initiative could be an instrument of federal intrusion, or cite an example of federal intrusion through PARCC. The group has received a $186 million federal grant for its work on the tests, but the state Department of Education has issued statements dismissing as a myth the idea of PARCC being used for federal control of education.

"The federal government does not have a hand in development of the aligned assessments pertaining to CCSS," according to an undated document on the agency's website. "There are two state consortia responsible for developing Common Core aligned assessments as well as some states that have developed their own assessment programs, such as Kentucky and New York."

The document is entitled, "Demystifying the Movement: Answers to Common Myths about the Common Core State Standards."

During his press conference Tuesday, Scott also appeared to hedge when asked whether his logic could be used to get rid of the Common Core standards themselves. (more…)

Even for Florida, a state that has put education policy on overdrive for 15 years, Monday’s summit was remarkable: Three dozen education leaders, business leaders and lawmakers, all but locked in a room to hash it out over the state’s contentious approach to standards, testing and accountability.

Gov. Rick Scott called the three-day event at St. Petersburg College after a tough summer for those who back Florida’s current vision of education reform. The goal, if reachable, might be even more remarkable: A common road map for an education system that has generated some of the biggest academic gains in the nation over the past 15 years yet has also been subject to relentless criticism and, more recently, self-inflicted wounds.

The participants, who also included teachers, parents, superintendents and school board members, politely hinted at the divisions during introductions.

Florida’s accountability system “has had a great deal to do with rising student achievement,” said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who was House speaker when the heart of the system was installed under former Gov. Jeb Bush. “I hope we don’t take a step backwards.”

“Florida has been on the right course,” said Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. But “it doesn’t mean we’ve done everything right.”

Now, he continued, we have the opportunity to fix the rest.

The state's fledgling teacher evaluation system, one of four areas targeted for discussion, also surfaced as a sore point.

Teachers "don't trust the system," said Joanne McCall, vice president of the Florida Education Association.

But Keith Calloway, with the Professional Educators Network of Florida, said teachers were not uniformly opposed. "There are many of us teachers out there right now that like the evaluations," he said.

It remains to be seen whether parties long at odds can agree on meaningful steps in the short term, let alone stick together on common ground for the long haul. History suggests it will be tough. (more…)

There were 1,000 in Tallahassee, Fla., 2,000 in Columbus, Ohio, 2,400 in Greensboro, N.C. and 10,000 in Buffalo, N.Y. And that’s just in the past few weeks.

From coast to coast, swarms of parents are showing up at school choice rallies for charter schools, vouchers, tax credit scholarships or all of the above. They’re not angry like the Tea Party or Occupy. They don’t have defiant flags or frayed tents (yellow scarves maybe :)). But they’re just as passionate and far more diverse.

“I want to be able to have a choice for where my daughter can go to schools,” one New York City mom said at a rally last summer. “I don’t want that choice made for me.”

That rally drew 5,000.

In the past year, one in Chicago drew thousands, as did one in Indianapolis. One in Atlanta drew 1,500. One in Boise drew nearly 1,000. One in Los Angeles drew 1,000. Another in Los Angeles drew 5,000.

In Pembroke Pines, Fla., nearly 1,000 showed up earlier this year to demand equal funding for charter schools.

Critics say Astroturf. Perhaps saying it enough has tamped down press coverage.

But people don’t take time out for these kinds of things if they’re lukewarm. There’s something happening here, and all those blips on the radar aren’t about to fade.

If you need any more proof that the political coalition for school choice is as broad as it gets, listen to Nancy Stacy, a school board member-elect in Marion County, Fla. Stacy is a Republican Party activist, backed by the Tea Party, who describes herself as “to the right of Jerry Falwell.” But in some of her battles with school boards, she said, her closest allies were feisty moms “to the left of Hillary Clinton.”

Now Stacy, 58, has plans to use her new power as a school board member to pitch school choice and parental empowerment to low-income parents, particularly minority parents. She suggests many of them are probably fans of President Obama, but … so what?

“One thing all parents have in common with one another, regardless of political party, is we all want the best education for our children,” she said in a phone interview with redefinED. “I work with anybody that can help me with that goal.”

For two decades, Stacy has been a steady pain for the district, unleashing her inner pit bull on everything from curriculum to scheduling. Don’t get her started. Within minutes, the retired construction company owner will be railing against a school system that has “become a jobs program,” blows money on “snake oil peddling consultants,” and is run by “a bunch of jocks.“

Stacy said she was inspired by Herman Cain to run for school board instead of again backing other candidates. Her opponent was a retired school administrator. He had strong backing from the teachers union. The reaction last month when he lost?

People were “freakin’ slap out,” she said. “Totally.”

They don’t believe what she’s going to do next, either, she said. (more…)

Tea Party groups succeeded in pushing the Republican Party platform to the right this year, but they failed to restore a former plank they favor: Eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.

The effort was led by FreedomWorks, the advocacy group chaired by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey and a leading force in the Tea Party movement. Brendan Steinhauser, director of federal and state campaigns for FreedomWorks, told redefinED at the RNC that while the group fell short on the platform language, it succeeded in fostering a debate about decentralized decision-making in education – and the effectiveness of federal involvement. (FreedomWorks, by the way, is a strong supporter of expanded school choice).

“I don’t think that there’s any evidence that education has improved in this country because of the Department of Education,” Steinhauser said.

You can hear Steinhauser’s comments in full by clicking on the recorded interview below, but here are some highlights:

On criticism from former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings (who favors a federal role in education): Those who support a federal role “are technocrats who think you can plan education policy from the top down, from Washington D.C., better than you can at the local level. And I just don’t think that that’s the case. … Allowing for local communities to decide what’s best for their children, what’s best for their communities, is the way to go. So when you give a federal department like the Department of Education more power as opposed to less power, they will use it. And I just am not convinced that bureaucrats in Washington D.C. know how best to educate our children in local communities."

On ironically being a bit in sync with the teachers unions (which are critical of federal initiatives like Obama’s Race to the Top): “Given all the fights we’ve had with the teachers unions over the years – they’re kind of our arch enemies when it comes to policies we’re pushing – one particular position like this, I don’t think matters a whole lot. I think you can probably find some common position between just about anybody. But no, when it comes to the big battles, the big debates, I think we’re on the right side here and on the opposite side of the teachers union with about 99 percent of the issues.”

At the RNC in Tampa this week, a small but bright constellation is scheduled to line up on education reform. Democrat Michelle Rhee, who famously tangled with teachers unions as schools chief in Washington D.C., will share a spotlight with Jeb Bush, who has praised President Obama’s ed initiatives, and Condoleezza Rice, who co-authored a Council on Foreign Relations ed report with Democrat Joel Klein. The panel will be moderated by Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor who just got into a Twitter spat with Randi Weingarten. All will come together after a private screening of “Won’t Back Down,” a new movie that shows even Hollywood has embraced parental empowerment in education.

This will be a remarkable little event – a hopeful symbol of a centrist political coalition, in the midst of a red partisan sea, that is poised to take advantage of historic opportunities to re-shape the nation’s schools.

Poised, that is, unless it get chewed up by the fringes.

The Republican Party may be tilting even more right, but on education the centrists still hold sway. Jeb Bush, who supports a federal role for education, and backs national academic standards, remains one of the party’s leading lights on ed reform. His prime-time speech will likely generate more ink about education than anything else that happens at the RNC.

But obviously, there is tension. Rising Tea Party currents want to erode recent federal activism in ed reform – a position that so ironically leaves them pitching tents next to teachers unions. Their passion is well-meaning; their arguments worth considering. But their timing is especially bad: Reform-minded Republicans and Democrats are getting close when it comes to a common vision for public education – a vision that includes a healthy dose of school choice and bottom-up transformation. This rare alignment is mostly intact because the GOP led on education, and enough Democrats bucked their own fringes to shift the GOP’s way.

In a recent op-ed for redefinED, Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education under George W. Bush, didn’t call out Tea Party groups by name, but she didn’t mince words when it comes to the potential consequences of their aims: “This ‘unholy alliance’ between the unions and those who want no role for the federal government in education is propping up the status quo on the backs of our most vulnerable children,” she wrote. “It’s shameful beyond words.”

Mitt Romney and the ed centrists won a quiet victory in Tampa last week. They beat back attempts to restore an old plank in the GOP platform – eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. Tea Party linked groups got almost everything else they wanted. But according to Politico, instead of using the word “eliminate” in the draft language regarding the U.S. DOE, a subcommittee voted to replace it with a call to “support the examination and functions of.”

That’s a breather, but a temporary one. It should give added urgency to those in both parties who want to see constructive change and know more will get done, quicker, if centrists work together and find ways to grow their ranks. It’s important to remember that today, at the start of the storm-delayed RNC, before the spin makes every crack between Romney and Obama on education look like a canyon.

by Joe Williams

I spend a lot of my time navigating the tumultuous internal conflicts and ideological inconsistencies within my party, the Democratic Party, when it comes to public education. In fact, that’s more or less my job description. So I have to admit that it is somewhat pleasurable to watch the emergence of similar tensions on the other side of the aisle amongst my Republican allies, especially when it comes to ed reform and school choice. Maybe pleasurable is not the right word. Perhaps it’s perplexing. Even a little depressing.

Nearly a year ago, we watched with great interest as a fascinating left-right alliance formed in Washington between the teachers unions (who didn’t like the concept of federal accountability in schools) and the Tea Party (which didn’t like the idea of any kind of federal involvement in schools.). Together, this alliance wound up shaping proposed changes to existing federal law that would let states and districts off the hook for improving the academic performance of millions of disadvantaged children. Historically reasonable folks like poor John Boehner started looking like the helpless, powerless substitute teachers we used to torment back in middle school.

I don’t intend this to kick a speaker while he is down, but to point out the obvious as Republicans consider their path on education issues: they have to figure out whether they are Boehner Republicans (willing to cut a deal involving a federal role in school choice and accountability issues) or Tea Party Republicans (who would seem happiest if there were no schools, let alone taxpayer-supported public schools). They need to figure out who among them is willing to let the federal government act as a catalyst for some key needed policy changes, and who among them oppose any federal education policy whatsoever just as a misguided point of principle.

I don’t mention this glibly. The tremendous pull that the Tea Party has had on domestic policy issues, including education, has folks on our side of the aisle looking back longingly at the groundbreaking work that President George W. Bush and Boehner were able to accomplish with liberal icons like Senator Teddy Kennedy and Rep. George Miller. You know, back in the good old days where at least both parties agreed that government could be an enabler of good, rather than just an overpriced agent of evil.

So, understanding that tips from a Democrat will be taken with a grain of salt at the RNC, I nonetheless offer these nuggets for consideration:

1. Throw the Tea-Baggers under the bus: If you don’t do it for issues of substance, do it for the politics alone. (more…)