By School Supporter

September 19, 2008 9:28 PM | Link to this

Those articles were nothing but damage control for the Obama campaign, along the lines of “Sure, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers squandered millions of dollars from the Annenberg Foundation under the supervision of Senator Obama, but lots of other people were conned too!” Obama’s ed advisors seem determined to repeat the greatest ed policy failures from the nation’s past. In contrast, Bill Clinton got it right 20 years ago: “The Common Agenda: Liberating Undreamed-Of Talent,” Bill Clinton, Governor of Arkansas & Chairman, Education Commission of the United States: “State agency and local administrative control is deeply entrenched and there is great, often justified, fear that too much deregulation could lead to falling minimums rather than rising maximums. The system of selecting, training, evaluating and rewarding school leaders seldom encourages both competition and innovation. Entrenched bureaucracies—from teacher colleges to administrator groups to teacher unions—often fight harder for their turf and their retirement benefits than for more flexible, open and efficient ways of educating children. A powerful inertia grips the system. Many within it have tired of state mandates piled on the already considerable burden of their jobs and have decided to “wait this one out,” as they have waited out reforms in the past. You can try to change a complex system like this through outside pressure and influence, but without the support of people inside the system not much will happen. On the other hand, people inside the system will never change it radically without the help of policymakers, community leaders, business leaders, and others outside the system. The key to success in the next stage of reform is to get people inside and outside the system to work in tandem.”