Inspired by commentary at MNBlue on the United States Senate race here Minnesota, I thought it was high time we had some comparative analysis of these three DFL contenders on various issues. We begin, then, with the issue of education for our first installment in a series of posts on the issues.
While each of these three candidates herald the public school system and recognize that on the federal level the problems of NCLB and unfunded mandates are the primary cause for concern, they have varying methods of addressing the issues in question.
Al Franken on Education:
In addition to funding issues, I believe that the No Child Left Behind law must be dramatically reformed or scrapped altogether. I'm for accountability, but I'm not for the deeply-flawed NCLB system.
End arbitrary performance standards and replace them with models that measure and reward progress achieved during the school year.
Encourage more flexibility in measuring student achievement. Allow teachers to participate in the evaluation of their students' progress over the course of a year instead of at a single point in time (for instance, by assembling student portfolios).
Franken describes the need to move away from evaluating schools based on the results of one test. However, there is no explanation of how such a student portfolio system would operate and how much flexibility schools across the country would have in implementing this system. Also, there is little discussion of how to effectively evaluate growth from year to year. The Ciresi campaign seems to understand far better, that comprehensive evaluation across grade levels is far more sensible than comparing students in one year to the students the following year.
Stop duplicative testing. My daughter taught third grade in a public school for three years, and she was constantly frustrated by the amount of classroom time that had to be devoted to testing and test preparation. While we need to measure student progress, too many districts have overlapping district, state, and federal tests. We should audit tests at the district, state, and federal level to ensure that this doesn't happen.
This statement is somewhat odd given the previous support for moving away from testing based assessment. The question becomes, what role will testing play in the student assessment proposed by Mr. Franken? If testing is pared down to just one, haven't we essentially moved back to a system of one test determining the "progress" of our students? Franken has essentially adopted the reform platform of Education Minnesota, NEA, and AFT. If that is the case, it makes me wonder how much of it he truly believes versus how much he simply wanted to gain the support of the unions.
Mike Ciresi on Education:
I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed to notice that Ciresi does not have a K-12 education statement on his issues page. While the issues facing higher education are prominently displayed and important, I cannot understand why Ciresi, who has done much through his private foundation, doesn't have an issue statement on K-12 education.There is some evidence as to his education beliefs in the video section of his campaign website, so we will use those statements in this analysis.
"I would introduce, immediately, a bill to scrap No Child Left Behind."
...
"This bill has left all of our children behind."
Ciresi does much to explain what is wrong with No Child Left Behind. Unfortunately, he does not offer solutions on what initiatives or proposals he has to replace the program. Much like Franken, Ciresi touts the need to find another method of evaluating children beyond the punishment system of NCLB. He does, however, tout some of the ways he has involved himself in education. Specifically, through the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation Board and his own private foundation, the Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. Foundation for Children. While it is important to understand the problem, it is equally important to offer solutions to those problems. Education solutions appears to be a weak point for the Ciresi campaign.
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer on Education:
Shifting the costs of education from general taxes to property taxes also strains budgets, aggravates inequalities and erodes financial support for public education.
I support increased state and federal funding for k-12 public education. I support a federally funded universal preschool program for 3-5 year-olds to be paid for with reductions in military spending. I also call for ending tax breaks given by the Bush administration to the richest 1% of US families and redirecting those resources to make college and university education affordable to all students.
Nelson Pallmeyer essentially sticks to the topic of funding education and avoids the topic of education reform. While it seems feasible to accomplish the rollback of Bush tax breaks, I simply do not see how he will accomplish reducing military spending. Taking on military spending during a rather contentious time of war v. peace speaks to the willingness of Nelson Pallmeyer to take on the big fights. However, as a realist, I think we need to address extracting ourselves from Iraq before we jump headlong into issues of military spending. At the very least, Nelson Pallmeyer has thought about how he might pay for the programs he supports rather than simply just proposing them. Neither the Franken or Ciresi campaigns appear to offer ways in which they will pay for unfunded mandates or new initiatives.
With respect to education, I am going to have to give the edge to Al Franken. Purely based upon the comprehensive nature of the issue statement on his campaign site, Fanken has the advantage. While I have concerns about the level to which he is simply pandering to the education union and how much he truly believes in the rhetoric found there, it is hard to deny that he is offering the more specific solutions and revisions of NCLB. Ciresi and Nelson-Pallmeyer, though, have an advantage over Franken that they really ought to be highlighting with respect to education. Nelson-Pallmeyer as an educator with experience in the classroom and Ciresi through his education advocacy work should both be using these tools when touting their message.
I encourage anyone who supports one of these three candidates to comment about the positive aspects of their candidates education positions. Perhaps I missed some policy statements or other evidence highlighting what your candidate will do in terms of reforming education.
With respect to education, I am going to have to give the edge to Al Franken. Purely based upon the comprehensive nature of the issue statement on his campaign site, Fanken has the advantage. While I have concerns about the level to which he is simply pandering to the education union and how much he truly believes in the rhetoric found there, it is hard to deny that he is offering the more specific solutions and revisions of NCLB. Ciresi and Nelson-Pallmeyer, though, have an advantage over Franken that they really ought to be highlighting with respect to education. Nelson-Pallmeyer as an educator with experience in the classroom and Ciresi through his education advocacy work should both be using these tools when touting their message.
I encourage anyone who supports one of these three candidates to comment about the positive aspects of their candidates education positions. Perhaps I missed some policy statements or other evidence highlighting what your candidate will do in terms of reforming education.
Stay Tuned, in the next episode we will examine these three candidates on Health Care.
3 responses to "Al, Mike, & Jack: An Issue Analysis (Education)"
This is really good analysis! Great job Muse.
As a Vet, I have been troubled for years with the military industrual complex. As a former Bradley Master Gunner, I never made more than $24,000 in a year, over 11 years in the Army. With my training and experience, I could have worked for Vinnell, DynaCorps, Honeywell, or GE, making more than $100,000, doing less than what I did before.
I chose the college route and a degree in Sociology.
Point being, whether it's depleted uranium munitions, the warrior ethos you are exposed to, multiple non-FDA approved drugs, and a slew of other issues, I've been told to follow the money.
When nuclear power plants use uranium to produce power, U-238 remains, depleted uranium.
While pure U-238 is slighly radioactive, oftentimes, this has been also exposed to plutonium and other highly radioactive materials.
The Department of Energy sells this stuff for pennies on the dollar to Aliant Tech Systems and other weapons producers.
They make DU munitions and sell it back to the Department of Defense at an insane mark up.
I too cannot support Franken. I've seen all of these candidates speak at least 3 times each in different locations, each alone and now once with all of them in the room.
Franken is not funny. He seems to ramble at times in his stump speeches, looks bored, and he has way too much baggage.
It was a tough choice between Ciresi and JNP for me. Ciresi is my #2. JNP gets the issues that matter to me, while it may be unrealistic for him to take down the MIC, at least he understands it. He talks about the interconnected nature of how this money could be used for other things.
Great analysis though, I think you are spot on Muse! Great work and I'm sure we'll chat later!
As a Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer supporter, a public school parent, and a former public school teacher, here's my view:
As a parent, especially one whose spouse spends ridiculous amounts of time fundraising for our schools, I consider funding to be the key issue.
Jack takes a wholistic view of this and he is right to do so.
Just the other day I asked my first grader's teacher how many kids were in her class. She said 26. Then she offered that she liked it better when there were 19. She said that now she isn't able to meet all the kids needs for attention, and so kids start to act up because they need attention.
If you are a parent you know about this. Kids need attention. I thought about how my three kids (I am a stay at home dad) so need to be paid attention to. Then I thought with sadness and concern about how I leave them to fend for themselves in a school where the teacher is physically unable to give fully adequate attention to all the kids because the classrooms are over crowded.
School reform is fine, but the big deal is funding. Classrooms are over crowded because the schools are underfunded. Teachers can't teach and kids can't learn if the classrooms are overcrowded.
There's more to that issue: Early child education is neglected because there are not funds. There are not funds because they are going into military spending. Back to schools:
We also have less prepared children in our schools becauswe they are not getting the early childhood educational experiences. This makes for kids who "need" education reforms. Wouldn't it be simpler to stop fighting wars and fund education?
Big Roz: You make an interesting point about funding vs. reform. As a public school teacher myself, I understand how adding those few more bodies to the classroom changes the entire dynamic.
Also, I have often said that one of the problems in the system is too much change in direction. You have Republicans come in and begin to change things in their image and then Democrats come in and change things in their image. What happens is that teachers are constantly being pulled in the direction of the political wind.
Great points! I appreciated them.