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This Issue:
Stimulus Aid to Schools a Management Challenge

What's in it for schools?

Class Size Makes Biggest Jump of Bloomberg Tenure

For Education Chief, Stimulus Means Power, Money and Risk

Schools reconsider full-day programs

The Treasures of Joe Bruno

Stimulating the Schools: A Plan for Federal Action

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Stimulus Aid to Schools a Management Challenge

By Alyson Klein
February 17, 2009

The $787 billion economic-stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed into law today presents an unprecedented opportunity—and an unprecedented management challenge—for new U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Cash-strapped states, districts, and schools are eager for their shares of federal support under the measure, which includes some $115 billion in precollegiate and higher education aid. That sum includes substantial increases for Title I grants to help disadvantaged students, an increase in special education money, and a nearly $54 billion fund to help make up for dramatic cuts in state-level support to schools.

Secretary Duncan—who has not yet filled top political jobs at the Department of Education, including a deputy secretary and undersecretary—will have to make sure all that money is sent to states, and in turn, to districts, in a timely fashion. Aides to Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives say they hope a sizable chunk will make its way to states before July 1.

Mr. Duncan also is in the enviable but high-pressure position of overseeing $5 billion in discretionary grants that will be given to states, school districts, and nonprofit organizations for school improvement.
That money, which Mr. Duncan has dubbed the “Race to the Top Fund,” includes incentive grants to states that have made progress in raising their standards, closing achievement gaps between poor and minority students and their more-advantaged peers, or ensuring that highly qualified, effective teachers aren’t concentrated only in wealthy suburban areas.

Mr. Duncan will also have wide latitude in awarding up to $650 million in “innovation grants,” which will go to districts, groups of districts, and nonprofits that are making gains in student achievement. Mr. Duncan said the money can help “scale up what works.”

But the grant process for those two pots of money could present some political pitfalls, said Margaret Spellings, who served as U.S. secretary of education during President George W. Bush’s second term.

“The opportunity for misdeeds and so forth is high with this big amount of money. It just is,” she said in an interview before the stimulus bill became final. There must be “strict grant criteria to wring the politics out of the process,” she said. “If I had a nickel for every member of Congress who called me up and said, ‘Won’t you look kindly on [a particular grant application]?’ … A good administrator has to guard against that.”

Ms. Spellings, now a private consultant in Washington, spoke highly of her successor’s capabilities, but pointed out that he doesn’t yet have his team in place.

“As hard-working as the department’s career staff are, the people who are ultimately accountable are the political appointees,” she said.

Hurdles Loom

Secretary Duncan appears well aware of those challenges.

“We have to implement and execute this in an absolutely impeccable manner,” he told about 500 people from education organizations during a Feb. 11 conference call. “We’re going to be very closely scrutinized.”

And, in an interview with Education Week last month, he said he was looking for good managers to serve in top roles at the Education Department. ("Education Aid in Stimulus Raises Eyebrows," Feb. 4, 2009.)

Meanwhile, school districts and education organizations already are pressing for more details on how much money they will receive and when. Some advocates for districts are worried there aren’t explicit provisions in the legisation, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that require states to get the money out quickly to districts.

Secretary Duncan said in a separate conference call with reporters last week that the department plans to be “very fast, but also be very smart” in allocating the money and will give states “real guidance around speed.” He wasn’t specific about what those guidelines might look like.

Under the new law, the secretary is given authority to waive so-called “maintenance of effort” provisions, which require states to keep up spending at the level of fiscal 2006 to be eligible for money from a $53.6 billion state fiscal-stabilization fund. That fund is intended to help states shore up their budgets and restore education funding cuts.

The measure allows Secretary Duncan to waive the requirement for states in particularly dire economic circumstances, but it will be up to the Education Department to determine just which states are eligible for such an exception.

Some states, including Florida, which faces a yawning budget deficit, have already signaled that they will be asking for waivers. In the conference call with reporters, an Education Department consultant said that federal officials will examine states’ specific circumstances and don’t want to issue a “one-size-fits-all” blanket waiver.

Accountability Demands

And Secretary Duncan will have to hold school officials accountable for following through on “transparency” requirements in the stimulus measure, which call for schools to give public notice, on the Internet, of how the funds are being used.

Some pieces of the stimulus package may be tough for the department to enforce. For instance, to be eligible for all of the money in the $53.6 billion stabilization fund, states must assure the department that they will make progress in key education reform areas, including improving student assessments and teacher effectiveness. But there’s nothing in the legislation that spells out penalties for failing to make progress.

The Education Department consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged as much, but pointed out that the education secretary’s $5 billion discretionary fund could be an enticing carrot. The secretary is supposed to award the grants based on progress made on those key education assurances. If a small number of states make big progress on those goals, they stand to gain an sizable additional chunk of money.

“All of these provisions are really powerful,” the adviser said.

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What's in it for schools?

By The Associated Press
February 17, 2009

The economic recovery bill passed last week will spend at least $100 billion on education. Here is how the money will be spent:

Stabilize state budgets:

--$54 billion to help offset state budget cuts, of which $39 billion must go toward K through 12 and higher education. Another $5 billion is for incentive grants awarded by the secretary of education to encourage innovation by states and school districts.

--Of the $54 billion, $9 billion could be for other priorities, including school modernization.

Elementary and secondary schools:

--$25 billion extra to No Child Left Behind and special education programs, which help pay teacher salaries, among other things.

--$450 million for federal programs that fund teacher pay reforms and state data systems.

Higher education:

--$32 billion to cover a shortfall and increase the size of Pell Grants from a maximum of $4,731 to $5,350 and increase tuition tax credits to $2,500 and make them refundable so more families can benefit.
Early childhood education:

--More than $4 billion for the Head Start and Early Head Start early-education programs and for child care programs.

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Class Size Makes Biggest Jump of Bloomberg Tenure

Class sizes rose at nearly every grade level across the city last year, according to a report released by the city’s Education Department on Tuesday, the largest increases since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took over the school system in 2002.

School officials called the increase “unfortunate” but blamed it on the economy and said class size was largely in the hands of principals.

“Class size is related to the number of teachers schools employ,” said the report, which was sent to the City Council on Tuesday. “The combination of budget cuts and increases in teacher salaries means that principals, while they have continued to hire staff, have been cautious about hiring.”

The largest growth was in the third grade, where the average moved to 21.8 students per class, compared with 20.9 students last year. The city does not calculate an overall average because class sizes vary so much according to age; every increase was a gain of less than a single student. Class size increased even though enrollment in the city’s public schools decreased by nearly 4,000, to 1,019,525, because the number of classes also declined.

Critics of the department said the increases showed that the mayor and Chancellor Joel I. Klein have ignored efforts by the state and the City Council to reduce class size.

“Class-size reduction money has been in place for a long time, and they have done nothing with it,” said Councilman Robert Jackson, the chairman of the Education Committee. “They get an F. They don’t even get an A for trying, because getting an A for trying would mean all of what they had been doing would be geared toward getting the size down, which it has not.”

Mr. Jackson urged the state’s Education Department to take action against the city, including withholding money from its annual budget. Nearly $150 million in state money, part of an infusion that resulted from a longstanding lawsuit over school financing, was earmarked last year for reducing class size, either through creating new classrooms or hiring more staff members to co-teach in a single classroom.

Garth Harries, who oversees class size for the city’s Education Department, said that in an operating budget of nearly $17 billion, that was “at best marginal funds.”

“They are important obviously, but this is a truly massive system and what we put out today are aggregate numbers for that entire system,”
Mr. Harries said. “Schools are all working to protect their priorities both in cuts they have already experienced and cuts that they anticipate.”

Mr. Harries emphasized that the increases were not startling, and that in most grades, the current average is below what it was in the 2002-3 school year, when Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein took control of the system.

But many students still attend classes that are more crowded than the city’s stated goals of 20 students per class in kindergarten through third grades (there are no targets for older grades). Roughly 45 percent of kindergarten students, for example, are in classes of 22 to 25, and more than 4,000 of the city’s roughly 61,000 first-graders are in classes with at least 28 students, according to Education Department figures.

The largest average class size, 26.9 students, is in the eighth grade.

Mr. Harries said it would take more time to know whether schools that now receive extra money from the state were able to reduce the number of students in their classrooms.

The report also warned that classes might soon get even bigger, as the department adjusts its five-year class-size reduction plan required by the state to “reflect the worsening economic climate.”

“The school system in the city is fighting to keep our heads at level, so that means that we will have to go back and have to reconsider the plan,” which was written in 2007, Mr. Harries said in an interview.

Randi Weingarten the president of the teachers’ union, who has long pushed for smaller classes, called the rise “disheartening and inexcusable.”

“The state will not continue sending the city money for class-size reduction if the city continues to defy the terms and intent of the 14-year-old Campaign for Fiscal Equity court case,” she said in a statement. “It’s time for the city to quit making excuses and comply with the law.”

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For Education Chief, Stimulus Means Power, Money and Risk

By Sam Dillon
February 17, 2009

WASHINGTON — The $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools and colleges in the economic stimulus bill could transform Arne Duncan into an exceptional figure in the history of federal education policy: a secretary of education loaded with money and the power to spend large chunks of it as he sees fit.

But the money also poses challenges and risks for Mr. Duncan, the 44-year-old former Chicago schools chief who now heads the Department of Education.

Mr. Duncan must develop procedures on the fly for disbursing a budget that has, overnight, more than doubled, and communicate the rules quickly to all 50 states and the nation’s 14,000 school districts. And he faces thousands of tricky decisions about how much money to give to whom and for what.

“It’ll be wonderful fun for a time for his team — it’ll be like Christmas,” said Chester Finn, a former Department of Education official who has watched education secretaries or commissioners come and go here since the mid-1960s. “But the thing about discretionary spending is that it makes more people angry than it makes happy.”

The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign on Tuesday, doubles federal spending on disadvantaged and disabled children, includes hefty increases in the main federal college scholarship program and for Head Start, and, for the first time, makes billions in federal dollars available for school renovation.

Expectations are running so high, and the appetite for information is so large among the nation’s educators, that when Mr. Duncan organized a conference call last Wednesday to begin explaining the stimulus bill’s terms to a few dozen state and district superintendents, 800 callers swamped the switchboard.

Most of Mr. Duncan’s unusual power would come in disbursing a $54 billion stabilization fund intended to prevent public sector layoffs, mostly in schools. The bill sets aside $5 billion of that to reward states, districts and schools for setting high standards and narrowing achievement gaps between poor and affluent students. The law lets Mr. Duncan decide which states deserve awards and which programs merit special financing.

“It’s hard to imagine moving that much money that quickly,” said Margaret Spellings, Mr. Duncan’s predecessor, who turned her seventh-floor office over to him last month. “The point is, it’s never been done before, and as much confidence as I have in Arne Duncan, there’s an awesome opportunity for slippage with that much money moving through the meat grinder.”

Maybe Ms. Spellings is slightly jealous, since she and other secretaries stretching back decades had only small amounts of money for favored projects.

“Teeny, teeny,” said Amy Wilkins, who as vice president at the Education Trust, a civil rights group, has studied the budgets of several of Mr. Duncan’s predecessors. “Margaret was looking for quarters in her pencil drawer.”

Mr. Duncan said he understood the unusual circumstances.

“There’s going to be this extraordinary influx of resources,” he said in an interview. “So people say, ‘You’re going to be the most powerful secretary ever,’ but I have no interest in that. Power has never motivated me. What I love is opportunity, and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something special, to drive change, to make our schools better.”

Mr. Duncan said he intended to reward school districts, charter schools and nonprofit organizations that had demonstrated success at raising student achievement — “islands of excellence,” he called them. Programs that tie teacher pay to classroom performance will most likely receive money, as will other approaches intended to raise teacher quality, including training efforts that pair novice instructors with veteran mentors, and after-school and weekend tutoring programs.

The stimulus money will help states avert some, but most likely not all, of the education cutbacks for the 2009-10 school year resulting from state budget shortfalls that currently total some $132 billion. California, for instance, is facing a $41 billion budget shortfall, much of it in school spending, but will receive some $11 billion in education money from the stimulus, estimates the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union.

The positions of deputy secretary, under secretary and chief of staff and dozens of other senior posts at the Education Department remain unfilled, so Mr. Duncan is relying on help from career officers and consultants. He has appointed teams to develop procedures for distributing the stimulus billions quickly, and many aides, he said, have been working evenings and weekends to begin organizing the effort.

“I want all of us to work hard enough and smart enough to take full advantage of this, because it’ll never happen again,” Mr. Duncan said last month in his first speech to hundreds of civil servants at department headquarters, as the outlines of the huge stimulus package were taking shape in Congress.

Urging department employees not to be deferential, he described the reception he got on his first visit to his headquarters.

“It was like, ‘Hello, Mr. Secretary-designate-nominee,’ and it didn’t feel right,” Mr. Duncan said. “My name is Arne. It’s not Mr. Secretary. Please just call me Arne.” That line drew a standing ovation.

He has hit it off well with Congress, too, so far. His wife, Karen, whom Mr. Duncan met in Australia, where he played professional basketball after his 1987 graduation from Harvard, accompanied him to his Senate confirmation, along with their daughter, Claire, 7, and son, Ryan, 4, who sat quietly during the hearing, reading storybooks.

“If you and your wife have done such a great job with Ryan, who is so well behaved, I hope you can do that with every child in American classrooms,” said Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia.

Another Republican senator, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, said Mr. Obama had made “several distinguished cabinet appointments.”

“I think you’re the best,” Mr. Alexander, who was education secretary under the first President Bush, said to Mr. Duncan.

But now comes the hard part.

Last year the Education Department distributed about $59 billion to states, school districts and colleges, most of it along well-worn financing paths mapped out by Congress.

“Congress usually spends two years debating the rules for how to spend $50 million,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a research organization in Washington. “But this time they’re providing money without spelling out how it should be spent, so Arne Duncan and his staff are going to have to work out rules themselves in just weeks. He’s going to have his hands full.”

Congress has stipulated some rules, of course. To receive a share of the $54 billion stabilization fund, governors must make several “assurances” to Mr. Duncan, intended to drive school reforms: that they are developing statewide data systems that can allow schools to track individual students’ academic progress, that they are assigning experienced teachers fairly to rich and poor schools alike, and so on. Mr. Duncan has the ticklish job of ruling on whether the governors’ assurances are convincing.

And Congress has given him a $5 billion incentive fund that he can use to reward states that are raising student achievement and withhold money from states that are not. “We have states that tell the public that 90 percent of kids are meeting state standards,” Mr. Duncan said, “but when we look at how they’re doing on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, it’s nowhere close. I’m not going to reward that. I
want to be transparent about the good, bad and the ugly.”

Some states and districts will get less than what they believe is their share, which could create powerful enemies.

“Secretary Duncan has a very challenging job,” said Joel Packer, a lobbyist for the National Education Association. “It’ll take a lot of effort to get this right.”

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Schools reconsider full-day programs
High fees threaten kindergarten plans

By Linda K. Wertheimer
February 18, 2009

With the economy in decline, several school districts are rethinking their plans for full-day kindergarten because of the high fees involved, threatening the state's recent inroads in making a full day of school available to all 5-year-olds.

In Hingham, the school system dropped plans for full-day kindergarten, because the town didn't want to stick parents with a bill for thousands of dollars a year. In Winchester, leaders want to charge $2,500 to send youngsters to kindergarten for a full day but worry about parents pushing back. And in Lexington, parents are already objecting to a $1,075 fee for the full-day program.

"People are losing their jobs, their life savings. It's really not the time to saddle us with another bill," said Sharon Olofsson, a Lexington parent who spoke out against the school system's kindergarten fee at a School Committee meeting last week.

Three-fourths of the state's public kindergarten students are in full-day classes, compared to roughly a fourth a decade ago.

Boston, the state's largest school system, has offered free, full-day kindergarten since 1998 using state and city funds, and most other urban systems also offer full-day classes. But 46 of the of the state's 306 school systems, including charter schools, do not.

The average full-day kindergarten fee has jumped by $282 per student to $2,682 in the last four years as state funding for kindergarten took hits during budget crises. Last fall, Governor Deval Patrick cut a transition grant fund that helps more school systems expand from half- to full-day programs.

Fewer school systems are making the move to add classes, and a growing percentage of families are being asked to pay for the extra time in school - and to pay higher fees than in the past, according to educators and state data.

"We're not able to move on at the pace we'd like to in implementing full-day kindergarten statewide," said state Secretary of Education Paul Reville, who said he still believes the state's goal of having full-day kindergarten in all school systems is realistic.

The question mark, he said, is whether the full-day classes can be offered free in all places by 2018, a new goal set by a state commission in December.

"We had an economic tsunami between now and then," he said of the goal's establishment.

The state has been pushing for more full-day kindergarten classes since it established a grant program for full-day kindergarten in 2000. Massachusetts mandates half-day programs, as do the majority of states, according to the Education Commission of the States in Denver, which advises policy-makers on education.

Most states are cutting spending on full-day kindergarten despite a growing national view among educators and lawmakers that children need more time in kindergarten to be successful in subsequent years.

"It could be an enormous step backwards," said Mimi Howard, the director of the commission's early learning program. "Prekindergarten programs are on the chopping block, but more so full-day kindergarten. It has not yet established its place as a real piece of education pipeline."

Half-day kindergarten programs are generally 3 to 3 1/2 hours a day, while full-day programs run to about six hours. Schools use the extra time, educators say, to go deeper into lessons and include more extras, such as music, art, and nap time. The biggest plus, teachers say, is getting to know children better and catching learning problems earlier.

"People would like to go to full-day kindergarten almost everywhere but they can't because they don't have the money, or they don't have the space," said Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.

Hingham had been hoping to offer full-day kindergarten next fall, then reversed course this month because of budgetary issues on top of the governor's earlier cut to kindergarten aid.

"Philosophically, I don't think we should be charging for full-day kindergarten," said Superintendent Dorothy Galo. "There are people for who that's a reach no matter how wealthy some members of our community are."

Manchester Essex Regional, which has had full-day kindergarten since 2004, recently chose to make cuts in other district programs rather than ax its full-day kindergarten program. It debated charging a fee and decided against it, fearing some parents would take their children out after a half day rather than pay.

"We didn't want to get into the haves and have-nots," said Susan Beckmann, the School Committee chairwoman.

In Lexington, the School Committee, which receives $300,000 from the state to cover half the cost of its 20 full-day classes, is mulling raising its fee from $1,025 to $1,075, cutting the remaining half-day class, and leaving it up to parents whether they want to take their children home after a half day. The committee will vote on the proposal on Feb. 24, but later hopes to develop a plan to eliminate tuition for full-day kindergarten, according to School Committee Chairwoman Helen Lutton Cohen. She added that eliminating the fee would be impossible through 2012 because of economic constraints.

This year, only nine students are in Lexington's one remaining half-day class, an option that roughly a dozen parents lobbied to keep at the recent School Committee meeting. The parents said taking their children out at 12:15 p.m. was not an equitable solution especially since Lexington educators touted full-day as the superior choice.

"Are they saying they're offering two different kinds of education?" said Cindy Bond, a parent whose son would head to kindergarten in the fall.

In Winchester, which received no state funding for full-day kindergarten, school officials will decide in March whether to approve three, four, or five days of full-day instruction. In a survey, the percentage of parents wanting full-day kindergarten dropped from 82 percent to 68 percent when the school system asked if they would agree to a fee.

Marc Kerble, Winchester's assistant superintendent of instruction, said his preference is the five day, $2,500 per child option because teachers and children are too rushed to cram in the material in the half-day classes. But three days, at $1,500 each, may be the more palatable option to parents, he said.

Julie Broderick, a Winchester parent of a 4-year-old daughter in full-time day care, supports a full-day program. Her daughter's private school charges $14,000 for kindergarten, including an after-school component.

"That's a bargain," she said of $2,500. "She's ready for a full day of kindergarten."

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The Treasures of Joe Bruno

February 17, 2009
Editorial

For Sale: One very sleek-looking GMC van w/ leather seats, meeting table, luxuries galore. Nearly new. Purchased by New York taxpayers for $50,000 to transport former State Senate Leader Joseph Bruno, now indicted. Ask for the Brunomobile by name.

So far, the Democrats who took control of the State Senate last month are still trying to figure out how to unload all of the pricey gear accumulated secretly while Republicans were in charge for more than 40 years.

The idea that the party in power controls the goodies is not new in Albany. But Democratic aides who are still looking under rocks and poring over documents have found something close to an alternative political universe off limits to all but the Republican Party.

There was the clandestine Senate printing plant that “edited” Democratic literature while it produced dazzlingly slick brochures for Republicans. That printing facility was leased for more than $600,000 a year, which sounds like a ton of money for upstate real estate. And there was the television studio on Long Island that helped Senate Republicans get face time on cable TV news shows. There were 800 parking spots for 32 Republican senators (the 30 Democrats got 30 spots that year).

Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, should immediately start investigating whether public funds were spent illegally. And instead of becoming a guidebook for Senate Democrats now in control of the money trough, this cache should be the state’s last.

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Stimulating the Schools: A Plan for Federal Action

By Pedro A. Noguera & Alan M. Blankstein
February 13, 2009

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has enormous potential to improve the quality of our nation’s public schools. This legislation represents a historic investment in children’s futures that could eventually change the very future of this nation. This is an opportunity that cannot be squandered.

Over the last eight years, educational progress in the United States has been modest at best. President Barack Obama’s administration will need a bold new strategy for reforming our public schools if they are going to play a more significant role in moving the nation forward. There can be no future for the auto industry, for example, if the schools in Detroit and other manufacturing centers are not capable of educating a new generation of workers to design the cars of the future. In cities and towns across America where jobs are being lost at a dramatic rate, revival of local and regional economies will require strategic investments in human capital. This will be possible only if our schools have highly trained and motivated teachers and a curriculum that provides students with 21st-century skills.

To solve the pressing problems confronting our economy and schools, national leadership by the Obama administration and the teachers’ unions will be needed. We have to move the conversation about teacher quality beyond a narrow debate over merit pay and job protection, to one focused more broadly on how to ensure that teachers receive adequate support and training to meet the academic needs of their students, and to ascertain their effectiveness in the classroom.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan may soon have $5 billion at his discretion that could go a long way toward making research-based strategies available to underperforming schools and students who desperately need help. The bill also provides $200 million in funding for districts that want to reward educators for outstanding performance or for taking on additional responsibilities and leadership roles. A portion of the stimulus focuses on training and recruiting outstanding teachers for classrooms that need them most. Too often, the least-experienced teachers have been sent; why not send the best teachers to schools that are struggling?

“We know that America’s school systems need more than just money to fix the many problems they face. New approaches to educating children and managing schools and districts are required to bring about the kind of changes we wish to see.”

There is another $100 million allocated to address teacher shortages and modernize the teaching workforce. This money could be used to provide training for new teachers to help them improve overall student achievement. These funds should be directed toward enhancing professional-development activities for new teachers, strengthening teacher recruitment and training efforts, and improving the preparation of general education teacher-candidates so they could more effectively teach students with disabilities. In addition to these critical efforts, we need extended site-based mentorship during the first two to three years of service to help increase the likelihood of success and retention for these teachers.

We know that America’s school systems need more than just money to fix the many problems they face, and that increased funding alone will not produce better results. New approaches to educating children and managing schools and districts are required to bring about the kinds of changes we wish to see. Policies and systems must be in place to promote best practices in teaching, reward high performers, and provide opportunities for feedback and development for those in need of improvement. We also must ensure that like the countries to which we typically compare ourselves, we provide high-quality early-childhood education, health care, and extended learning opportunities to all children in need. The United States will not be a leader in the 21st century if we continue to ignore the basic needs of vast numbers of children.

Finally, while teacher quality is crucial, sustainable school improvement can only be achieved if there is leadership development on a districtwide basis. We need a new generation of leaders who possess the skills required to engage in “positive deviance”—employing the tactics essential to achieve success within an otherwise failing or mediocre system.

The views expressed here echo sentiments expressed last week at a high-level forum sponsored by the HOPE Foundation. Participants included two former governors, policymakers, and top education leaders. Although those attending came from different backgrounds with opposing perspectives, and from both sides of the aisle, we were able to put aside political differences to focus on the future of this country’s young people. We worked hard to identify what we agreed were the six most important education policy actions facing President Obama and members of Congress today. If we can achieve broad consensus on these important issues, our nation’s policymakers can and must collaborate as well.

Strong leadership by President Obama and Secretary Duncan will be needed if we expect to see superior academic outcomes and greater accountability for the dollars to be invested. The federal government must send a clear message to the states that failure is not an option. Our children deserve that, and our future as a nation depends upon it.

Pedro A. Noguera is a sociologist and professor of teaching and learning at New York University, in New York City. Alan M. Blankstein is the president and founder of the Harnessing Optimism and Potential through Education, or HOPE, Foundation, in Bloomington, Ind.

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ANNOUCEMENTS

Dr. Jackson will be a featured speaker at the following events.  Please contact Marcela Castrillon Velez, Executive Operations Manager, at 617-876-7700 or mc@schottfoundation.org if you are interested in attending or would like more information.

NAACP Centennial Celebration
and Boston Branch Membership Drive
Roxbury Community College
Media Arts Building, Rm. 301
1234 Columbus Ave.
Roxbury Crossing, MA. 02120
Monday, February 23, 2009
6:00pm- 9:00pm

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Curley School Black History Month Program
Curley K-8 School
493 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
9:00am-10:00am

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Education Challenges Facing New York City
Confronting the New High School Graduation Standards
Sponsored by: The Annenberg Institute for School Reform
Professional Staff Congress, CUNY
61 Broadway, 15th floor
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
4:30pm-6:30pm

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NJ Education Summit "All Children, All Schools:
Best Practices in Challenging Times"
Lord Stirling Community School
New Brunswick, NJ
Saturday, March 7, 2009

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"Transforming No Child Left Behind"
sponsored by National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy
Hilton Alexandria Mark Center Hotel
Alexandria, VA
Friday, March 13, 2009
9:30am-10:00 am