Politics and schools: A long love affair

By selliott | Thursday, May 14, 2009, 03:05 PM

For as long as I’ve been writing about education (and, of course, long before that) people have complained about politics becoming enmeshed in schools. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard somebody complain that if they could just depoliticize schools things would be better.

But that’s a pipe dream. It’s just the nature of the beast. Schools are a huge government-run enterprise and at the top of the organizational chart — locally, at the state level and nationally — are elected officials. And elected officials play politics as a matter of survival.

Consider the recent example of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s joint appearance with Gov. Ted Strickland at what amounted to a political rally last week. There were lots of political undertones to the speechmaking and media interviews afterward. Check out my column today for more.

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Speaking of vouchers …

By selliott | Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 05:41 PM

Earlier this week, I was writing about the debate over vouchers in Washington, D.C. Let’s not forget that we also have a huge and nationally important voucher program right here in Ohio — and Dayton, naturally, is a key player in this school choice program too.

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Will Obama walk the walk on DC vouchers?

By selliott | Monday, May 11, 2009, 04:37 PM

it looked last week like President Obama wriggled loose from a potentially sticky controversy when he announced support for the District of Columbia’s voucher program. The program had been conspicuously left out of earlier budget plans, with deafening silence from Democrats who appeared to be hoping the program — reviled by some in their coalition — would die quietly.

It didn’t. Voucher supporters raised alarms, pointing out that the program’s demise might actually result in some classmates of the president’s children at their private school being tossed back into the city school district. An awkward potential image, to say the least.

But Obama’s support of the program is both weak and conditional. He supports adding $12 million to the budget to keep kids currently in the program at private school until they graduate but he opposes allowing new kids in. Also, there is no guarantee voucher opponents in congress won’t still kill funding. Whether Obama actually fights for the vouchers in the budget process remains to be seen.

And either way, he has set in motion a process that will slowly kill the program at a time when even the reform-minded head of the school system, the blunt-talking Michelle Rhee, would likely admit that many of the city’s schools are at the moment failing to educate kids. Even if change comes and big improvements are made, they will take time.

This debate is heavily political, with lots of baggage on both sides of the aisle. But Obama may not be able to dance around it, as it is very easy for voucher supporters to challenge the disconnect between his rhetoric and his actions if he does.

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Can potential sex offenders be saved?

By selliott | Sunday, May 10, 2009, 11:38 PM

That’s the question we’ve asked over at the Matter of Opinion blog. Have ideas for public policy initiatives or new laws that could help keep potential sex offenders from crossing the line? Please head over there and share your thoughts.

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A blueprint for challenge grant cash?

By selliott | Friday, May 8, 2009, 02:29 PM

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was in Ohio today for a “rally for education” with Gov. Ted Strickland, who is in a tough fight to get his budget, and the attached 10-year education reform plan, through the Republican-controlled state Senate.

The mere presence of Duncan at such a rally was an interesting show of support for Democrat Strickland and his reforms, many of which match nicely to the education reform priorities of the Obama administration. Duncan, when asked, stopped short of saying he “endorsed” Strickland’s plan, but expressed support for some of its features.

Congress is in the process of flowing $100 billion in economic stimulus aid for schools to all 50 states. (Ohio got about $1 billion for schools.) That’s helping Strickland hold his reform plan together for now. But he knows he’ll need more money going forward to keep momentum.

One potential source to tap is $4.35 billion in “challenge grants” that Duncan has total discretion to award to as few or as many states as he wishes.

With Strickland’s plan in pretty good alignment with what Obama appears to want, it would seem there is a decent change of getting some challenge grant money here, which could help fund the education reform plan. How much money this could be is a big question. At Friday’s event, Duncan and Strickland gave some hints.

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Humor and kids: It’s good for them

By selliott | Sunday, March 1, 2009, 10:53 PM

There’s a ton of evidence that kids learn language best in conversation with adults. The more they speak with adults on a grown up level, the better there brain understands how sophisticated language works.

In my column this weekend, I argue that this also extends to adult humor. Many times, adults shield kids from grown up jokes or assume they can’t understand. But the truth is, they understand more than you think.

And, in fact, understanding why things are funny to adults — how language creates exaggeration or absurd understatement, or irony, or sarcasm — is actually good for their developing brains. Because to understand those humor concepts requires fairly sophisticated thinking and deepens the child’s understanding of language.

Take a look at the column and tell me what you think.

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Obama throwing more money at student loans

By selliott | Thursday, February 26, 2009, 04:37 PM

The New York Times has a good summary of President Obama’s education budget proposals, which includes big jumps in student loan support and an indexing of Pell Grants to inflation, which will ensure grant amounts grow as inflation goes up.

I have to say I am surprised by how high education spending is on Obama’s agenda. During the campaign he mostly spoke in broad, general terms about education and, frankly, didn’t say all that much about it. This lead many to believe he was just issuing the usual platitudes about the value of education that all politicians cherish.

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