Mr. Obama, Tear Down This School!

by Tom Panarese

category: Education Politics

Published June 28, 2009 @ 07:05AM PT

Someone needs to tell Arne Duncan and company that the Berlin Wall didn't come down because Germany wanted to simply "rebrand" itself.

The Washington Post has reported, tongue a bit in cheek, that the Obama administration recently tore down one of the more theatrical symbols of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law -- a red schoolhouse that served as the backdrop for NCLB's signing and for the last seven years has sat on the corner of Maryland Avenue SW, in front of the U.S. Department of Education building.

Tearing down the building is a symbolic gesture ...

"It's like the new Coke. This is a rebranding effort," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. "The feng shui people believe you need to take the roof off buildings to allow bad chi to escape. Let's hope this helps."

... and the next act will be to try and change the name of the now-infamous law ...

Matthew Yale, deputy chief of staff for Duncan, said the department is considering a contest to rename the law.

"We want to think about something that's forward-looking instead of something that seems to have a negative connotation," Yale said. "We want to think of something that talks about future and potential."

You know, that's all well and good, but why do I have a feeling that the people in charge of our educational system are working from the Cliff's Notes on "How to Run General Motors"?

Time and time again in this space there has been a breakdown of what the current administration, especially its secretary of education, has been talking about (which is a lot) and doing (which, honestly, hasn't been much) to bring about the change promised in the presidential campaign.  We're not the only ones to acknowledge this:

Toxic or not, is No Child Left Behind headed for extinction?

Lawmakers have yet to tackle an overhaul, and Duncan has not offered specifics on how he would like to see the law revamped. But the administration has said it will not back down from testing students or holding schools accountable.

Duncan has said he wants even higher standards that measure U.S. students against peers worldwide. But he said states and schools should have more flexibility in achieving goals.

Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said Duncan sometimes sounds a lot like former Bush education secretary Margaret Spellings. Like Spellings, Duncan has been promoting charter schools and merit pay for teachers.

"Other than kind of the aesthetics of it, it's not clear the schoolhouse represents anything more substantial," Hess said.

This appears to be the first step down the typical "Educational Reform" path, in which a symbolic gesture carrying no weight is followed by a piece of legislation that does very little to change the current situation -- or, like NCLB, adds another layer of bureaucratic gunk to something that's already dirty and gunky.  Of course, when said legislation is passed, it will be on a grand stage with smiling children, apples for everyone, and a nice big banner with "NEW EDUCATION LAW WITH CATCHY NAME" written in comic sans or some other font I'd like to drop-kick.

All because the powers that be are politicians whose primary job is to -- wait for it -- get reelected.  That's why we have standardized tests, is it not?  Oh sure, you can give me some purple prose about how the use of standardized testing is a way to measure that all our children are achieving, or that it's a way of measuring our country's performance on the international stage. But to crib from one of our former presidents, my definition of "is" is a little different than that.

I would like, for once, to see a proposal for an overhaul that plans for beyond the next election cycle.  It seems stupid for me to say that, but when you've got politicians crowing about test scores and national standards when there is rampant inequality among the 51 different entities that oversee our public schools, forgive me for not standing up and screaming "USA! USA!"  And I'm not saying that we should just throw money at the situation, either, because when that's happened in the past. It just makes me think of that old joke about how a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into.

Don't make me disillusioned in the first six months of your turn, President Obama.  It took the last democratic president at least a couple of years and a sketchy dry cleaning bill to do that.  When you were picking at the scab that is the NEA during the campaign and challenging their commitment to the status quo -- even if it was just a little -- I was psyched.  So please acknowledge ALL of the problems.  Lay it out on the table for us to see.  Then, let's get started.  You know, before 2011 rolls around and you're signing the Children Reaping America's Promises law just in time for the Iowa Caucuses.