Frankly Speaking

By Frank Pugh

One of my monthly "Frankly Speaking" articles that I write for the California School Boards Association.

When I became CSBA's president last December, they warned me that I was in for the roller coaster ride of my life. Right now, I feel like I'm in the middle of the first upside down loop, holding on for dear life and just hoping that my keys and wallet don't fall on the unsuspecting crowd below.

Last week, it was my privilege to lead CSBA's Federal Issues Council on its annual trip to Washington, D.C., where I was joined by my fellow officers and a small delegation of CSBA directors and delegates, as well as our executive director and staff. It was an excellent trip--over the course of three days, the delegation held 27 meetings with a wide variety of people and organizations. And our timing could not have been better, as we began our meetings on the very day that President Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan released the Administration's Blueprint for ESEA Reauthorization. As you can imagine, this led to some very interesting meetings, even as the entire town seemed to be in the throes of the health care debate that was then entering the home stretch.

As has become the tradition in recent years, our meetings began with a presentation from David Shreve, Federal Affairs Counsel for the National Conference of State Legislatures. In his talk with FIC members, Mr. Shreve touched on a number of education topics, but focused on Race to the Top and the common standards movement at the federal level. He described RTTT as "No Child Left Behind, Part 2," and noted that the three core ideas behind NCLB (standards-based reform, testing and punishment) are really not that different from the four assurances contained in RTTT. He expressed his opinion that RTTT, not unlike NCLB, is very process-oriented, and reflects a compliance mentality at the federal level.

In discussing common standards, Shreve stated NCSL's position as being one where common, voluntary standards are fine as long as they're "state-driven, and really common and voluntary." For that reason, NCSL is not supporting the standards that were released earlier this month, because "they're not common or voluntary." Earlier in the day, Shreve had heard Diane Ravitch (former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education in the Bush Administration) speak at a conference in New York City, and said that in her new book, Ravitch has done an "180 degree pirouette" away from standards-based reform and now decries what she sees as "amateurs pushing an education reform agenda."

We got rolling early on Monday morning, and the week just flew by.

During our meeting with Senator Barbara Boxer, I was able to deliver a letter of support from CSBA for her preschool initiative. This meeting took place in the president's room at the U.S. Capitol, which in the 19th and early 20th centuries was used by presidents to sign legislation into law at the end of each congressional session. The last president to use the room for its originally intended purpose was President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed the Voting Rights Act into law in August 1965.

When we met with staff for First Lady Michelle Obama in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, I personally delivered a letter of invitation to Mrs. Obama to speak at the 2010 CSBA Annual Education Conference and Trade Show. We also discussed the First Lady's new initiative to prevent obesity in children, and how it dovetails nicely with the association's efforts on student health and wellness.

During our meeting with Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, we had planned to share with Ms. Edelman our idea for additional intervention strategies under the School Improvement Grant program focused on curriculum, instruction and staff development. Before we were able to introduce everyone from our group she beat us to the punch with the same idea. We compared notes on our other recommendations around the ESEA reauthorization and the blueprint and also found the CDF's thinking to be in line with our own thinking. Ms. Edelman and her staff outlined their latest work regarding the Title I distribution formula and their efforts to work with Congress to revamp the formula, ensuring equitable distribution of federal dollars to the highest needs children.

At the U.S. Department of Education, we met with fellow Californian and former Pomona Unified School District superintendent, Dr. Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, assistant secretary office of elementary and secondary education. Dr. Melendez gave us a warm welcome to her adopted city, but the meeting quickly changed tone. We advocated for additional flexibility under the School Improvement Grants and requested that additional intervention models be allowed under the program. Despite impassioned personal accounts from Jill Wynns, San Francisco USD, about the challenges they will face under the principal replacement requirements and from Priscilla Cox, Region 6 Director, Elk Grove USD, regarding the unique challenges small and rural districts will face under the SIG, Dr. Melendez and her staff stood firm and defended the four intervention models as adequate to address the needs of the persistently lowest achieving schools in our state.

Our meeting with Lawrence Mishel, president and Dr. Richard Rothstein, research associate of the Economic Policy Institute, was just swell. They shared the work and recommendations of The Broader, Bolder Approach to Education which led to a discussion about ways to advocate for this approach in the ESEA reauthorization and as an intervention strategy for underperforming schools. The focus of much of Dr. Rothstein's work is on the public schools' progress toward closing the achievement gap. He shared with our group some of his latest research on the progress of fourth grade math scores on NAEP over the last twenty years and the significant gains made by African American students. We look forward to creating opportunities to collaborate and advocate with the EPI and Broader, Bolder Approach to Education in the near future.

And that, really, is just the tip of the iceberg. While we were in D.C., our group also discussed reauthorization of ESEA and the Child Nutrition Act with staff for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey, the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee; talked about community schools with Martin Blank at the Institute for Educational Leadership; shared perspectives on ESEA reauthorization with the Campaign for High School Equity, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the National Governors Association, the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, and The Forum for Education and Democracy; discussed career-technical education priorities with the National Association of Manufacturers; and talked about the importance of arts education with the National Endowment for the Arts. All of these meetings were valuable, in that they allowed us to advocate positions and build alliances that will be critical as Congress begins hearings on ESEA reauthorization.

And, finally...in the midst of all that, our Executive Director Scott Plotkin, our Media Relations Director Susan Swigart, and I held "media briefing meetings" with reporters and writers for National Public Radio, Education Week, and The Washington Post. These meetings allowed us to share the perspective of California school board members on a number of key education topics, and we are hopeful that they will help to inform the education coverage in each of those media outlets.