Comments on: It’s not nice to call the President a liar http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/news/its-not-nice-to-call-the-president-a-liar/ Public Policy Research Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:19:06 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Jim Stergios http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/news/its-not-nice-to-call-the-president-a-liar/comment-page-1/#comment-3859 Jim Stergios Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:54:16 +0000 http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/?p=1685#comment-3859 Stephen: Also, forgot to mention cap lifts in Michigan, Illinois, maybe Massachusetts (we will see once we unpack the details of the mess in the House, and then conference), and perhaps next week in New York. Stephen: Also, forgot to mention cap lifts in Michigan, Illinois, maybe Massachusetts (we will see once we unpack the details of the mess in the House, and then conference), and perhaps next week in New York.

]]> By: Jim Stergios http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/news/its-not-nice-to-call-the-president-a-liar/comment-page-1/#comment-3834 Jim Stergios Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:51:04 +0000 http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/?p=1685#comment-3834 Hi Stephen: There is no doubt that Sec. Duncan's call to remove caps on charters has had an impact. In RI, the House Finance Committee turned down funding for new Mayoral Academies in May, but one day after Sec. Duncan spoke out about the Fin Cte action, the House as a whole approved funding. TN raised its charter caps and IN extended its charter legislation all as a result of this federal leveraging. On other state reforms, it is much foggier. Like the "innovation" schools segment of the ed bill in MA, where we are not sure it will work, many other states are trying out stuff that could simply be hard or impossible to implement. Or states could simply make a show of reform without substance. That is why we at Pioneer, while we support other reforms, are largely focused on charter schools. It's also why my post was about Sec Duncan's work to advance charters. There the discussion is much clearer. He has advanced charters, and they do work. Hi Stephen: There is no doubt that Sec. Duncan’s call to remove caps on charters has had an impact. In RI, the House Finance Committee turned down funding for new Mayoral Academies in May, but one day after Sec. Duncan spoke out about the Fin Cte action, the House as a whole approved funding. TN raised its charter caps and IN extended its charter legislation all as a result of this federal leveraging.
On other state reforms, it is much foggier. Like the “innovation” schools segment of the ed bill in MA, where we are not sure it will work, many other states are trying out stuff that could simply be hard or impossible to implement. Or states could simply make a show of reform without substance. That is why we at Pioneer, while we support other reforms, are largely focused on charter schools. It’s also why my post was about Sec Duncan’s work to advance charters. There the discussion is much clearer. He has advanced charters, and they do work.

]]> By: Stephen Eide http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/news/its-not-nice-to-call-the-president-a-liar/comment-page-1/#comment-3808 Stephen Eide Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:40:36 +0000 http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/blog/?p=1685#comment-3808 I agree with the spirit of this post but not the details. First, you give other states too much credit. While it is true that RTTT has stimulated legislation in other states, those legislatures are under the same political pressures as in MA and the substance of those instances of “progress and reform” merits serious scrutiny. Andrew Smarick at AEI has written about RTTT’s potential to lead to “Trojan horse applications”: insincere proposals that promise reform but really just seek more stimulus money to shore up the status quo. Such grant applications will contain big-sounding policy promises whose fine print reveals to be not-so-big, or which will be scrapped as soon as the RTTT $ is no longer an issue. It is hard to overstate the ability of local constituencies to frustrate even the best funded federal attempts at K-12 reform. Second, Secretary Duncan has not been as clear as you imply on what needs to be done vis-à-vis charters to get the $. When the final RTTT guidelines came out in early November, the same effect was revealed as when our legislature’s “Education Reform Act of 2009” came out of committee: the direct influence of teachers' unions on the policy/legislative process. As I understand it, it is not, technically, necessary to have truly independent charters to win RTTT $. I believe it’s okay to have Horace Mann-style charters as long as they are sufficiently “innovative.” (Think about how undistinguished MA’s charter school record would be if all we ever had were Horace Manns.) Forget the issue of restrictive caps-has Duncan said that the states which don’t have charter laws at all have no hope? Bear in mind that charter policy is only one part of the RTTT application, only 40 of a total 500 points. Several policy areas (teacher policy, standards and assessments, use of data, and turnarounds) are all, individually, worth more points than charter policy. Even demonstrating local buy-in to the state’s proposal is given more points than charter schools. I think the debate about whether or not we are doing what Sec. Duncan wants us to do is confusing. Massachusetts should just do what’s right, which is also the simplest thing: raise the cap in low-performing districts, as Gov Patrick originally proposed. I agree with the spirit of this post but not the details. First, you give other states too much credit. While it is true that RTTT has stimulated legislation in other states, those legislatures are under the same political pressures as in MA and the substance of those instances of “progress and reform” merits serious scrutiny. Andrew Smarick at AEI has written about RTTT’s potential to lead to “Trojan horse applications”: insincere proposals that promise reform but really just seek more stimulus money to shore up the status quo. Such grant applications will contain big-sounding policy promises whose fine print reveals to be not-so-big, or which will be scrapped as soon as the RTTT $ is no longer an issue. It is hard to overstate the ability of local constituencies to frustrate even the best funded federal attempts at K-12 reform. Second, Secretary Duncan has not been as clear as you imply on what needs to be done vis-à-vis charters to get the $. When the final RTTT guidelines came out in early November, the same effect was revealed as when our legislature’s “Education Reform Act of 2009” came out of committee: the direct influence of teachers’ unions on the policy/legislative process. As I understand it, it is not, technically, necessary to have truly independent charters to win RTTT $. I believe it’s okay to have Horace Mann-style charters as long as they are sufficiently “innovative.” (Think about how undistinguished MA’s charter school record would be if all we ever had were Horace Manns.) Forget the issue of restrictive caps-has Duncan said that the states which don’t have charter laws at all have no hope? Bear in mind that charter policy is only one part of the RTTT application, only 40 of a total 500 points. Several policy areas (teacher policy, standards and assessments, use of data, and turnarounds) are all, individually, worth more points than charter policy. Even demonstrating local buy-in to the state’s proposal is given more points than charter schools.

I think the debate about whether or not we are doing what Sec. Duncan wants us to do is confusing. Massachusetts should just do what’s right, which is also the simplest thing: raise the cap in low-performing districts, as Gov Patrick originally proposed.

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