No Child Left Behind
Regarding the upcoming special session on No Child Left Behind (I'm predicting it won't be on the call), Utah’s (part-time) Education Deputy Tim Bridgewater opines, “Representative Dayton's attacks are untimely and miss the point. Most of the people who heard the announcements last week feel a major breakthrough occurred."
In Jim Collins’s book Good to Great, he discusses the importance of “getting the right people on the bus,” in order to move an organization forward. It’s time to admit, Gov. Huntsman has the wrong person on the bus when it comes to education. As several administrators have expressed to me, Tim knows less about public education in Utah than the average guy walking down the street. His two claims to fame are that he got thumped twice in Republican Primaries and that he claims to be close to the Bush family. How that got spun on a resume to make him the guy to represent Utah’s position in an education dispute with the Bush Administration is a dandy question.
For the guy who’s supposedly representing Utah’s position on this issue to accuse one of my beloved, best and hardest-working colleagues of “attacking” Secretary Spellings, just because Rep. Dayton believes that the principle of states rights remains an issue even after elections and believes in the fact that Utah can better run its schools than can the federal government, shows – in addition to whatever his bona fides are on education – that Tim is politically clueless. If Gov. Huntsman wants to retain the good relationship he started with the legislature in his first few months in office, he needs to send Tim back to the temp service and bring on a full-time deputy who understands Utah’s education system and who is more interested in representing the clear position held by all education interests in the state than in shilling for a federal appointment.
There are good reasons why all education interests in the state support Rep. Dayton’s position and why the House will eagerly follow her on this issue. Rep. Dayton’s copy of NCLB is dog-eared and tattered. She has her facts. Though the broad-brush underpinnings of NCLB are noble and good (such as increased accountability), the specifics of the Act are not helping Utah. NCLB could be improved and should be improved. The State needs to push for substantive changes, rather than dopishly salute pre-negotiation maneuverings as “a major breakthrough.”
In discussions with the federal government, it is time for Utah to involve people who have a clue what they’re talking about. If Utah puts competent people in the room, the parties will agree on the fact that Utah wants the flexibility to pursue what NCLB intended to promote -- accountability and improvement. Though this is stunning to me, the extremely competent Representative Margaret Dayton (see my previous accolades here) and State Superintendent Patti Harrington (previous accolades here) have been left completely on the sidelines (and by that I mean 100%). My constituents are serious about this issue. My legislative colleagues are serious about this issue. My state also should be serious about this issue.
Rep. Dayton and Superintendent Harrington need a seat at the table. And I know just the guy who could give up his to make room.
UPDATE (1/14/05): NCLB is on the call. The Administration is saying that Dr. Harrington and Rep. Dayton have been "very involved in every step of the discussion." That just doesn't seem to be the case. We'll have to get people together, retrace what happened, and make necessary changes, so that the chances of a gaffe like this happening again are minimized. To the merits: we likely will pass HB 1001 without significant amendment, (in other words., the same bill as passed by the House in the General Session). I'll give a critique of the issue in the next few days.
In Jim Collins’s book Good to Great, he discusses the importance of “getting the right people on the bus,” in order to move an organization forward. It’s time to admit, Gov. Huntsman has the wrong person on the bus when it comes to education. As several administrators have expressed to me, Tim knows less about public education in Utah than the average guy walking down the street. His two claims to fame are that he got thumped twice in Republican Primaries and that he claims to be close to the Bush family. How that got spun on a resume to make him the guy to represent Utah’s position in an education dispute with the Bush Administration is a dandy question.
For the guy who’s supposedly representing Utah’s position on this issue to accuse one of my beloved, best and hardest-working colleagues of “attacking” Secretary Spellings, just because Rep. Dayton believes that the principle of states rights remains an issue even after elections and believes in the fact that Utah can better run its schools than can the federal government, shows – in addition to whatever his bona fides are on education – that Tim is politically clueless. If Gov. Huntsman wants to retain the good relationship he started with the legislature in his first few months in office, he needs to send Tim back to the temp service and bring on a full-time deputy who understands Utah’s education system and who is more interested in representing the clear position held by all education interests in the state than in shilling for a federal appointment.
There are good reasons why all education interests in the state support Rep. Dayton’s position and why the House will eagerly follow her on this issue. Rep. Dayton’s copy of NCLB is dog-eared and tattered. She has her facts. Though the broad-brush underpinnings of NCLB are noble and good (such as increased accountability), the specifics of the Act are not helping Utah. NCLB could be improved and should be improved. The State needs to push for substantive changes, rather than dopishly salute pre-negotiation maneuverings as “a major breakthrough.”
In discussions with the federal government, it is time for Utah to involve people who have a clue what they’re talking about. If Utah puts competent people in the room, the parties will agree on the fact that Utah wants the flexibility to pursue what NCLB intended to promote -- accountability and improvement. Though this is stunning to me, the extremely competent Representative Margaret Dayton (see my previous accolades here) and State Superintendent Patti Harrington (previous accolades here) have been left completely on the sidelines (and by that I mean 100%). My constituents are serious about this issue. My legislative colleagues are serious about this issue. My state also should be serious about this issue.
Rep. Dayton and Superintendent Harrington need a seat at the table. And I know just the guy who could give up his to make room.
UPDATE (1/14/05): NCLB is on the call. The Administration is saying that Dr. Harrington and Rep. Dayton have been "very involved in every step of the discussion." That just doesn't seem to be the case. We'll have to get people together, retrace what happened, and make necessary changes, so that the chances of a gaffe like this happening again are minimized. To the merits: we likely will pass HB 1001 without significant amendment, (in other words., the same bill as passed by the House in the General Session). I'll give a critique of the issue in the next few days.
posted by steve u. at 4/12/2005
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13 Comments:
Strong words. I'll bet they won't engender a lot of sympathy from the governor's staff. But this is a critical issue, not just for Utah, but for the entire nation. All eyes are on us. If we drop the ball on this one there will be a lot of unhappy Utahans as well as unhappy Americans. Let's hope that we don't sacrifice this opportunity in exchange for one guy's career aspirations.
Wasn't this the whole reason the Gov said he was going to call a Special Session in the first place? If this isn't on the call, why bother?
Now is not the time to back down. This is an issue of states rights. Even President Bush knew that when he developed the accountablility system for Texas when he was their governor. Utah has patterned the UPASS system after the Texas system. Why is it so bad now. The only way we will see congress or the white house really want to work with the states is if we don't give in. I agree with Steve, this issue probably won't even be on the call for the special session.
The last commentor, Jeff Alexander, is the House Majority Leader (who, like the rest of us, has been kept out of the loop on this issue). Today, I received assurances that NCLB will be on the call and that Rep. Dayton and Patti Harrington will be included in future discussions. That's good. But, the point in the delay, between the session and now, was to work toward a good resolution with the federal government. We need our A team there to do that. As I understand it, Secretary Spellings had a signficant role in drafting NCLB. She deserves the respect of interacting with people from Utah who have a similar depth of understanding on NCLB itself and on the ins-and-outs of public education in the State. Bringing our experts and decision-makers to the table only a week before the session limits the time we have to work through these tough issues. However, as I expressed in the entry, I have great respect for the abilities of Rep. Dayton and Dr. Harrington and am hopeful they can adequately convey our case -- which is a good one for assessment and improvement.
One big question, "Why did the Governor run as a diplomat, yet can't seem to have a decent relationship with the Legislature?" Did he forget how to be a diplomat, or was he never a very good one?
Why is Mr. Bridgewater in charge of education issues? What has he done for education? I remember he came out against NCLB during the primary against Swallow. Does he not have any core beliefs and will say anything to get elected like the Governor?
I supported the Governor very strongly in the election, yet am disappointed in him. He keeps changing his positions. I get the feeling that he is keeping the Governors seat warm until a Senate seat opens up. I for one will not be supporting him because of his broken promises. He ran opposed to NCLB, yet now won't fulfill that promise. Education was a major issue, yet he put a novice in charge of the Governors Education staff.
Is there any chance we can recall him like they did with that bozo in California?
I don't think Governor Huntsman ever changed his position on NCLB. He has concerns with NCLB, made a commitment to put it on the special session call, and (I am happy to be wrong on this one) he will put it on the call like he said he would. My beef is that the person he put in charge of the project botched it.
That's probably part of the learning curve for the administration. In that regard, blame can go all around, and I better stand in line for my share. Yes, it was his man, but it is Utah's issue and the legislature's issue. Knowing it is so important and, now, seeing that we haven't taken advantage of the situation like we should have, it's apparent we should have handled this one differently.
To commentor #5, so far the relationship between Gov. Huntsman and the Legislature has been very good. The Legislature perceives that Gov. Huntsman wants to roll up his sleeves and govern. We've seen him willingly take on big issues that would scare away governors who just wanted to fill time and advance.
For now, this one might go down as a missed opportunity. We still have a week. In any event, we need to learn from it and improve. I've clearly put down my suggestion for improvement; like commentor #1 says, they are "strong words," but they are on point. Education is the most important thing we do in this state -- measured in just about any terms you could throw out (e.g, dollars spent, concern to voters, impact on our well-being). This episode (the first significant education issue of the administration) shows that we need to make some adjustments in who's driving the bus -- to preserve executive/legislative relationships and, once we've done that, to get it right. That, after all, is what the people want and expect.
Rep. Urquhart,
In all due respect, I don't think the Gov. is doing all that well. I was up at the session everyday, and his staff is not the brightest, and they treated the legislative branch poorly.
Yes Huntsman said he had concerns about NCLB in the campaign. All the candidates in the R party were hounded over this issue. I guarantee he would have struggled in the convention had everyone known then what we know now.
I commend you for the work that you do, and if your comment is correct: "My beef is that the person he put in charge of the project botched it." perhaps he needs to make a change
I'm glad the issue will be on the docket for the special session. Rep. Urquhart said that the right people will be involved in next week's discussions with Sec. Spellings. They now say the secretary's trip to Utah has been canceled. What does this development portend?
During the recent legislative session our city council passed a resolution to oppose the legislature's opposition to the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. The resolution was drafted because during the highly politicized into a showdown between the Utah educators and the Bush administration, Utah families, and most importantly Utah school children, have been neglected in the fray.
In our traditionally conservative state, if someone mentions the term "unfunded mandate" or "federalism," we tend to run screaming. It is just this kind of rhetoric, combined with horrendous myths, misconceptions, and half-truths (which have been perpetuated by the media) that have caused our state to look downright silly in our opposition to the requirements of NCLB. The fact remains that while there are legitimate weaknesses in the law, NCLB empowers families to make educational choices for their children, it finally holds our public schools to easily understandable testing standards, and U-PASS (the inferior and inadequately funded Utah system for assessing student progress) is a poor replacement for the standards of NCLB.
What we see here is that both systems have merit and both have challenges--a far cry from the "all good" or "all bad" characterization of one or the other. Ain't no pancake so thin it don't have 2 sides. SLC superintendent McKell Withers, for example, a very prominent voice among educrats, is very opposed to the state's opposition to NCLB. And there are others as well.
Furthermore, it is dishonest to characterize NCLB as an "unfunded federal mandate" when it is not mandatory at all. As you know, It is only mandated if we accept federal Title 1 education funding. Texas just rejected theirs, and therefore has no obligation to be accountable to the US dept. of education. As a state, we cannot command respect when we engage in circular reasoning. It is disingenuous and disgusting. While I abhor federalism as much as anyone, as a conservative with integrity I cannot condone the wholesale misrepresentation of the facts.
Frankly, it is about time the federal government demanded accountablility for spending. For Utah to say we want the money without the attendant standards is antithetical to our community values. We are better than that!
There are many well informed voices who have not been heard above the fray. I'm not necessarily going to take a stand on Bridgewter, but we need Governor Huntsman to represent the people. I was impressed by the comment regarding Margaret Dayton's inappropriate comments in the paper this morning, and I am hopeful that the Governor can be the voice of reason and represent the Utah families that benefit from NCLB legislation. Someone's gotta run interference while the Legislators are in a pissing contest with the Feds. As the Baltimore Sun reported today, "...NCLB isn't perfect. But NCLB was a response to the states' inability to take the tough steps needed to improve public schooling. And the state legislatures' 'leave us alone, we'll take care of it' posture represents a step backward."
I would like to encourage Governor Huntsman to support of the empowering tools that NCLB provides to our citizens, despite the political contests of will at the state level. We need the Governor to stand up to the legislature and to insist on an honest assessment of education in Utah. Assessments identify problems, and flexibility (lowering) NCLB's reasonable standards only ignores them.
It's one thing to want to be involved, and be left out. It's another thing to be promised by Utah's Governor, and not have that promise followed through. Being involved in a conference call only at Patty Harrington's insistence is not involvement.
Dayton was originally invited to DC to speak with Secretary Spellings and Gov Hunstman. She was subsequently and quietly left out of flight plans, meetings, and everything else involved.
Huntsman has returned from DC in a tough position: he got elected with both public support for a NCLB opt-out and interests from DC that would like to keep NCLB. Only Utahans don't know he is really against opting out, and that he has been scrambling to meet with State House leaders and convince them that the NCLB opt-out is unnecessary. It will be part of the special session because you can only paint yourself so far into a corner, but not without much resistance.
Tim Bridgewater's ridiculous assertion that every one is pleased with the steps that have been taken towards a compromise is laughable. Who's "everyone"? And what "steps" have been taken?
Now Tammy Kikuchi, the new PR-fallwoman, has to claim that Dayton has been involved in every step of the way. Anyone who can read knows that one conference call from a DC meeting she was dis-invited to is not "every step of the way."
I can't wait to see what member of Huntsman's lesser-known, underqualified staff will address the press next. The only thing more interesting will be to see what they have to say.
If this controversy about NCLB is really about state's rights, then we should just turn down the $$ from the feds and do our own thing - UPASS or whatever works for us. We shouldn't expect to get the $$ without adhering to the NCLB accountability standards.
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