Special education teacher Ann Marie Bokatzian admits that she chose to work with students with autism because “I fell in love with the disability.”

  “The purity of their souls just mesmerized me. I never intended it. They’re so pure in spirit, so pure in their soul. They don’t lie; they can’t  lie. To me, they’re the closest you can get to God. And they challenge me every day with their questions, their view of the world,” she said.

During her 23-year career, Bokatzian has worked with students from preschool through high school. But she has evolved into being a transition specialist, a unique breed of teachers who prepare special education students for life beyond the classroom.

Although she’s employed by the Grosse Pointe Public School System in suburban Detroit, Bokatzian is assigned to work in a retail clothing shop, Full Circle Upscale Resale, which provides work-based training for dozens of special education students every year. The students may have autism or Asperger syndrome, developmental delays, or cognitive impairments (including Down syndrome).

Each school day this semester, 27 Grosse Pointe high school students with a variety of disabilities spend up to 50% of their school week getting hands-on experience at the shop. In the 4,000-square foot facility, they learn how to sort, iron, arrange, and tag the thousands of clothing items donated for sale in the shop.

The community’s support for the shop is obvious in racks filled with donated clothing and shoes and the steady flow of customers. In the back of the shop, clothes fill more racks, just waiting for space to open in the front of the shop.

When Bokatzian and adult volunteers aren’t managing the cash register, they’re providing students with all sorts of guidance about behavior. Every moment at Full Circle is intended to be a learning opportunity for students. This means students hear frequent reminders about how to interact with customers and how to manage their own behavior, all with an eye toward skills they’ll need to thrive in a less-protected work environment.

Work is good

Full Circle opened in 2009 when Mary Fodell, a retired Grosse Pointe art teacher who has an adult daughter with development delays, was searching for a way to help children like her daughter Amy develop job skills. Few students who graduated from the Individual Education Program found jobs, and Fodell believed they wanted — and needed — meaningful work as much as their peers.

“You can see the spark of genius in these kids, but they can’t necessarily use it in a job situation,” Bokatzian said. She points to the student who is brilliant at algebra but can’t do simple mathematics, another who can immediately tell you the day of the week for any date on the calendar, and another who can provide the day, time, and place of every event in his family’s history.

The resale shop is self-sustaining and has proven so successful that the Full Circle Foundation is developing other areas where this clientele can gain more skills and contribute something of significance to the community. Last summer, Full Circle opened an organic community garden at Riverview Health & Rehabilitation Center in nearby Detroit. Food from the garden is taken to Services for Older Citizens in Grosse Pointe, which is donating a kitchen and classroom space to further support the program.

Plans are underway to introduce other “microenterprises” to take advantage of unique student interests. E-bay businesses are already beginning because students with autism are fascinated by computers. “They love computers because the human element is eliminated. When you take the feel, taste, sight out of something, all of those things that help you connect with the human world, you’re left with something that has no emotion. They feel comfortable with that. There’s less to interpret,” Bokatzian said.

Some days, I feel overwhelmed by adults who are fearful of being near anyone who is not like them. Then, I walk into Full Circle, and I feel so grateful to live in a community with teachers like Ann Marie Bokatzian who see God in every child. JR

Fourth in the series Raising Teachers

Great urban teachers, those who are enthusiastic about staying in urban classrooms for the duration of their careers, may very well be graduates of an urban school. Let’s examine an urban district that is putting this theory to the test by intentionally recruiting current it’s own high school students to become the district’s future teachers. (Full disclosure, I am the director of the national Future Educators Association, which I highlight in this post).

For more than 20 years, educators in Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, Kentucky) have been grooming the urban district’s future teachers from within the ranks of the students themselves – and it appears to be working. District personnel have established a Future Educators Association^® (FEA) chapter in every middle and high school, and they have partnered with the University of Louisville and several other area colleges and universities to create a seamless transition into higher education.

Offered at several of the district’s high schools, students enrolled in an Education Magnet Career Academy can earn college credit hours for courses taken in the program. Students are immersed in the educational community participating in job shadowing opportunities, tours of Kentucky colleges and universities, education related service-learning projects, an internship, and even a paid co-op teaching experience. Students attend the FEA Kentucky state conference and many travel to the national FEA conference to participate in competitive events with future educators from across the country.

So how are they doing? Are these high school students staying on the education career path and are they really becoming a part of the district’s teacher workforce? And do they stay?

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future reports that the national teacher turnover rate in urban schools is over 20 percent, and in some schools and districts, the teacher dropout rate is actually higher than the student dropout rate. Soundly breaking the national norm, more than 70 percent of the teachers within Jefferson County Public Schools who identified themselves as former members of a district-sponsored FEA chapter have been teachers within the district for more than seven years; 60 percent have taught there for more than 10 years (Storm, 2008).

A former FEA student and current middle school teacher had this to say, “Visiting other schools helped prepare me for college. One of the schools we visited happened to be the university I graduated from. FEA was a stepping stone to my career in education.”

Current students involved in the future educators program were asked about their career aspirations. Of the students surveyed, nearly 100 percent live in and attend school within the urban setting, 81 percent are of a racial or ethnic minority, and 95 percent confirmed that their family would be proud of them if they became a teacher. The background factors researchers found promising in recruiting urban teachers are clearly strong within this district.

Seventy-one percent of the students involved in the program who have indicated their intent to earn a teaching degree say they hope to begin their teaching career within the district. But even if they don’t become future teachers for the district, the program is elevating the profession and raising respect for those who have made it their career. Angel Crawford, a seventeen-year-old student in the program, said, “FEA helps you be prepared for life and for college. Even if you don’t end up having a career in education, you learn leadership skills and what it takes to be an educator. I really respect teachers, even more than I did before I got involved in this program.”

Next up: Now that we’ve picked them, what do we do to encourage them to continue on the teaching career pathway?

Sixteen members of the Learning First Alliance, including Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK), sent a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on May 24, 2011 (see press release).  In that letter, we urged the Secretary to provide regulatory relief to America’s schools in the absence of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). It looks that like that’s exactly what Duncan plans to do (see Education Week article by Michele McNeil).

To teachers, principals, superintendents, and parents living outside of the Washington Beltway, the Secretary’s announcement seems like a no-brainer. The Secretary himself has said that a high percentage of U.S. schools will fail AYP this year, and the Washington-based Center on Education Policy pegged the number of failing schools at 82 percent. Our annual PDK/Gallup poll documents that Americans do not support NCLB, and most agree that the requirement that 100 percent of our students be highly proficient by 2014 is unattainable. So what’s the big deal–wasn’t this announcement a long time coming?

Actually, the Secretary’s announcement demonstrates his courage to try to do what’s right, and admittedly, to push a reform agenda.  Of course, members of Congress have already expressed their annoyance with him, suggesting that he, as a member of the executive branch, is challenging their Congressional authority, and the expected “inside the beltway” education pundits are chiming in as well.

So again you ask, what’s the big deal?  Remember the golden rule?  He who has the gold makes the rules. Who allocates funds to federal departments like the Department of Education? Yes, that would be Congress. That’s one of the reasons why this is a courageous announcement.

In truth, Duncan is not challenging Congressional authority. He and the President are challenging Congressional sluggishness as reauthorization of the ESEA is four years overdue and there is no end in sight.

Many years ago I worked for an amazing principal, Richard Kast. If Richard taught me anything, it was to make decisions based on what’s best for students. Mr. Secretary, good for you for expressing what’s best for students, their parents, and their teachers.

I had the opportunity of a lifetime to deliver the commencement address at Michigan State University’s College of Education’s graduation ceremony, and I will be forever thankful to Carole Ames, Dean at Michigan State for giving me this opportunity. I knew enough to keep my comments brief, less than 10 minutes, and to focus on the graduating seniors. Below is a copy of my address. Bill

Students, parents, faculty and honored guests.  It’s an awesome day – a day you thought would never arrive.  It’s a day that each and every one of you contributed to in your own way.

Faculty, with each discussion you led or project you assigned, you lit a fire within your students—well at least you struck the match.  You pushed and prodded—you did your best to motivate—hoping your students would approach this day with a head full of knowledge and a sense of satisfaction.

And you were led by a scholar, Carole Ames, whose extraordinary vision and compassion for others was felt not only here in East Lansing but across United States and around the world. We congratulate Dean Ames for her service, and we will miss her leadership as she returns full-time to teaching and research.

Parents, for years you nurtured, supported, and guided.  But more important, you had the difficult task of giving your sons and daughters wings—wings so that they could soar into adulthood, away from the cozy nests you created years ago.

And students, you deserve the bulk of the praise, because you are most responsible for what you achieved.    It wasn’t easy – tests, ungodly hours, financial worries—OK, mom and dad probably had a few of those also—boyfriend and girlfriend woes, juggling classes and work—and hoping you would be the “survivor who remained on the island.”  But no matter what college-life threw at you, you persevered.   And it’s this strength and persistence that will help you as you embark on your new adventures.

But that’s looking back.  Now it’s time to look forward – to envision how you can make a difference in the world as you enter your chosen fields or pursue advanced schooling.

Although you are all going separate ways – some focusing on health and wellness — aspiring to shape strong bodies — and some focusing on education – aspiring to shape young minds. Regardless of your focus, you will all be touching lives.  But it’s how you go about this that will determine your success. My goal today is to focus on the “how.”    To do this, I chose one word:  Transformation.

The word “transformation” is heavy with meaning.  Maybe it conjures up images of super-powered machines that can annihilate or save the world in a matter of minutes.  But I want you to see it as a word heavy with potential.

For the last two years, I have participated in an important initiative in Washington, D.C.  Picture two dozen national education leaders and officials from the United State Department of Education meeting just blocks away from our nation’s capitol.  The topic during these quarterly meetings is how to transform public education.  Notice I said “Transform Public Education.”

Lately, there’s been a lot of rhetoric about education reform. But too many Americans believe that the word reform means that our schools are bad.  In truth, there are many good things about our system of public education—things that are too often overlooked by naysayers. For instance, while we’re learning from other nations new ways to teach math, those nations are learning from us better ways to teach creativity and problem solving.  

But there are many things in education that do need to change.  They need to change because the world is changing—changing at a more rapid pace than ever before.  So in Washington, we focus on needed change—on transformation.

I am up here looking at 400 young people, mostly future educators, who have the potential to make things different.  You have an exciting opportunity to be our “designated change agents” and you can accept this challenge by seeking out and embracing innovative ideas in education or in your chosen field.

But I have some not so good news. Unfortunately, there isn’t an app for this.  Fortunately, you don’t need an app—but you do need to engage—no—you need to lead, and here’s why.

Most of the transformations we envision during our meetings in Washington are technology related.  Your generation has never lived without technology.   That’s why we need you to take the lead.

For example, technology can be a great motivator.  Look at Angry Birds, the number one downloaded iTunes game app.   If you are familiar with this game, and I know you are, you know that the key is to constantly improve your score and advance to the next level, not unlike Mario or most other games.   It’s addictive.   Now think about this.  What if education was addictive? What if every student had the desire and motivation to advance to the next level—and couldn’t wait to do it?  You can motivate those you work with through the same use of technology.  This will happen—when you take the lead.

You can transform education through personalization. Personalization is everywhere – at the stores where we shop, at our favorite websites and social media, even at the doctor’s office.  So why not in education?  Picture a future where each student is taught in a manner in which he or she learns best.  Picture a future where we know why each student progresses or fails to progress, and we have the technology to change things for that one student.  Picture a future where we all work in teams not just to teach a class, but to teach a child.  This will happen—when you take the lead.

Former Vice-President Al Gore often shares a favorite African proverb, “If you want to go quickly, go alone—if you want to go far, go together.” That’s great advice. Accomplish these transformations by working with others—and it will be easier for you because of the unique program here at MSU’s College of Education that permits you to remain in contact with your outstanding faculty for another year. And while your faculty mentors are important, your peers are just as important. Remember, individually you are knowledgeable — collectively you are brilliant.  You and your peers have the power to transform education. It will happen—when you take the lead.

So in closing, I ask you—will you be a leader in this transformation?  I think I know the answer to that.  Because you are here today, receiving your diploma from one of the very best and most challenging education schools in the nation, you’ve already proven you won’t settle for the easier path.

If you accept your role as an agent of change—as the generation that transforms education—then you also know your hard work is not ending, it’s just beginning—but that hasn’t stopped you yet.

I wish you only the best life has to offer.   You’ve earned it. Thank you.

Third in the series Raising Teachers

We know that naturally great teachers are enthusiastic, believe they can make a difference, and are fair and respectful. But what about great urban teachers? Are there additional factors that great urban teachers possess, and can we begin to identify and select the next generation of great urban teachers from today’s high school students?

Recent research has linked not only pedagogical and content knowledge, but also certain attributes and background with effective urban teaching. Successful urban teachers have a strong knowledge base about teaching students from poverty, but research has also shown that a set of background factors is predictive of what kind of people will be effective in high-poverty, diverse school settings. These include people who:

Live in or were raised in urban settings
Attended schools in metropolitan areas
Are African American, Latino, or members of a minority group, or are from a working-class white family
Earned a bachelor’s degree from a state college, many starting in community colleges
Are part of a family, church, or ethnic community in which teaching is regarded as a high-status career
Have experienced a period of living in poverty or have the capacity to empathize with the challenges of living in poverty
Live in the city
Have engaged in activities with diverse children in poverty

We know that it’s certainly more than just background factors that make a great urban teacher. Successful urban teachers possess a strong desire to help at-risk students. Many see urban teaching as fulfilling a sense of duty and giving back to the greater good. They are aware of their own personal beliefs and philosophies, they have clear expectations and a belief that all children can learn regardless of the environment, and they are determined to modify their teaching practices to ensure that all students do learn (Gehrke, 2005). These talented teachers solve problems through persistent yet flexible avenues, work with a sense of urgency, understand the power of collaborations, are cooperative, and have a love of lifelong learning (Stotko, Ingram, & Beaty-O’Ferrall, 2007).

A study conducted in 2005 found that 61% of beginning public school teachers first taught in schools located within 15 miles of their hometown, and 85% entered teaching within 40 miles of their hometown. An amazing 88% of teachers whose hometown was in an urban district entered the teaching profession in an urban district.

It’s clear that great urban teachers, who are enthusiastic about staying in urban classrooms for the duration of their careers, may very well be graduates of an urban school.

A clear and thoughtful ‘grow-your-own’ urban teacher program, established in current urban high schools in partnership with local state colleges or community colleges, may be a very viable solution to staffing urban schools with outstanding urban teachers. Those future educators should experience the joys, rewards, and challenges of urban teaching in their precollegiate years, while they examine and assess their own personal dispositions and backgrounds.

Partnerships between the urban district and local colleges of education will pave the transition to collegiate life and complete the circle, turning the precollegiate future educators into promising new teachers who have the background factors, skills, content knowledge, dispositions, and clear expectations of what teaching is like in the urban school district, increasing the likelihood they will stay.

Previous post in this series: How do we know which students to pick?

Next up: A ‘grow-your-own’ urban teacher recruitment program at work!

Second in the series Raising Teachers

Ah, those eager, youthful faces that fill our classrooms . . . and perhaps those not so eager ones. Are any of them the faces of great future teachers? Which ones? Those with high grade point averages? Maybe the ones who have perfect attendance; they like school, right? Surely it must be the ones who always turn in their homework. Or maybe not. Maybe none of these indicators signal future success as an outstanding classroom teacher. If educators have the opportunity to hand select, cultivate, and nurture their future colleagues from the students they currently teach, which students should they pick?

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future widely cited research piece What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, chaired by Stanford researcher Linda Darling-Hammond, reported that “literally hundreds of studies confirm that the best teachers know their subjects deeply; understand how people learn them, and have mastered a range of teaching methods.”  This knowledge is helpful to principals and HR personnel who will hire teachers once they have earned their credentials, but what indicators could classroom teachers use to identify potentially great teachers from their high school students who haven’t even started down the education career path?

The good news is there are certain attributes many great teachers possess. These characteristics are not related to content knowledge, pedagogy, or advanced degrees. They cannot be learned or acquired through coursework and textbooks. Simply, they are the natural qualities of an individual’s personality.

The following is compiled from various researchers and is not considered an exclusive list, but certainly one that could guide us in identifying young people who may be “natural-born educators.”

Naturally great teachers are known to be:

• Enthusiastic
• Self-reflective
• Flexible, tolerant, and democratic
• Caring and nurturing
• Encouraging and warm
• Task-oriented and self-motivated
• Fair and respectful
• Humorous and joyful

Great teachers:

• Believe they can make a difference
• Listen and communicate well
• Overcome stereotypes
• Enjoy and respect people as individuals
• Have positive personal interactions with others
• Demonstrate “withitness” (i.e. the ability to “be in the moment” and able to react appropriately)

“Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the “naturals,” the ones who somehow know how to teach.” – Peter Drucker, 2007

Now look at those youthful faces again. See any natural-born teachers? Go tell them so and get them on the path to a classroom near you.

Previous post in this series: Picking Future Teachers

Next up: Identifying future teachers for the urban classroom.

Grant Kashatok faces challenges that most other principals can’t even fathom. He acts as landlord for the housing where his staff of eight teachers live, manages his community’s limited supply of fuel and water, and ensures balanced nutrition for school meals when fresh food is delivered only once a month.

Oh, and he’s also deeply involved in helping to move his village including his school nine miles inland before the community of 403 falls into Baird Inlet off the Bering Sea.

Kashatok is principal of Ayaprun School in Newtok, Alaska, one of dozens of coastal villages threatened by melting permafrost, thinning sea ice, and increasingly violent storm surges. Within 10 years, Newtok will be gone.

Although state government has tried to convince residents in the threatened communities to move to one of the larger cities, few have done so. Newtok residents prefer to move as a community so they can preserve their culture.

About 20 government agencies are involved in the moves and Kashatok, a native Yup’ik Eskimo, is the liaison in many of these discussions, often acting as interpreter between the elders who speak only Yup’ik and the outsiders who typically speak only English.

At one time, there were plans to place the 11-room school on a barge and move it down the river during “freeze up” until it could be placed on massive rollers and hauled to its new location. Most of the homes will be moved in this fashion but Kashatok hopes he’s finally convinced the powers-that-be that “there is nothing about this school that is portable.” He wants the state to build a bigger and better school in their new location.

Juggling challenges

Even without the impending move, Newtok’s demographics and isolation would be enough challenge for any principal. Nearly all of the 140 students speak Yup’ik at home. Although they learn a lot of English from watching television, teachers must ensure that students know the academic English to be successful in school. When Kashatok arrived as principal six years ago, only 9% of the students were proficient in English; today, 50% meet that standard. All of the high school students pass the state’s mandatory exit exam.

“We make a big deal out of saying that all the smart people know both languages. They can read, write, and speak English and they read, write, and speak Yup’ik,” said Kashatok who believes that holding on to their native language also inspires pride in themselves and their culture.

Access to the Internet motivates students to learn English, he said, because they want to connect with the world outside their small village. Newtok may be in one of the most remote areas of North America but the school has 80 laptop computers, including one for every high school student, and unlimited Internet access.

Kashatok grew up in a nearby village and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. He could have worked almost anyplace in Alaska. He chose to return home.

“I knew I wanted to live where I grew up. I wanted to show our kids that it doesn’t take an outsider to make a difference. When outsiders come in, they tend to have this missionary attitude, that they’re here to ‘save us.’ We can save ourselves,” he said.

Apart from the hassle of moving the entire village, Kashatok sees many teachable moments. His students are living on the edge of climate change. “This is not just a Newtok issue, this is a global issue. When we read about and watch television and learn about climate refugees, we understand what they’re going through because we are going through the same thing,’’ he said.

So, even if you teach on the edge of the world, you can still be in the center of change. JR

February is career and technical education (CTE) month – a time to celebrate all the CTE programs across the country that are preparing students to be college- and career-ready. Even more importantly, it’s a time for all educators, administrators, business owners, parents, and policymakers to recognize the importance of CTE and how it has changed over the years. The Future Educators Association^®, a federally recognized Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO), supports CTE programs of study that prepare students for careers in education.

Last year, Glenn Cummings, the former deputy assistance secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), wrote an article explaining that CTE is not the same thing as the older, more well-known “vocational education.” (Download a PDF of the Cummings article). CTE prepares high school students to be ready for careers or college, depending on their aspirations and dreams for the future. In this article, Cummings said, “[In CTE], it is now possible for a student to be on a path to almost any job that he or she can conceive of doing. [CTE] programs of study are designed to ensure that all students will have the necessary skills to enter either college or a career by integrating applied learning, higher academic expectations, and technical coursework that will lead to student success.”

CTE programs and their CTSO counterparts are transforming the way we educate the future workforce. The programs and opportunities offered through CTE and CTSOs allow students to engage in hands-on, in-depth learning that will help them develop the leadership and problem-solving skills that are necessary for success.

CTE and CTSOs are preparing students to become educators, business professionals, marketing executives, health care providers, engineers, and so much more. On Feburary 2, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview, “For all its importance, the role that CTE plays in building the nation’s economic vitality often gets overlooked. Too many educators assume that career and technical training is for the last century, not this one. Many reformers treat CTE as old school, rather than as a potential source of cutting-edge preparation for careers.” CTE is building our future leaders.

In President Obama’s State of the Union Address last month, he challenged young people to rise to the challenge facing our schools: “…to every young person listening tonight who’s contemplating their career choice, if you want to make a difference in the life of our nation, if you want to make a difference in the life of a child, become a teacher. Your nation needs you.” CTE programs of study that focus on preparing students for college and careers in education, and that partner with the Future Educators Association, help answer this call.

What do you know about CTE and how are you supporting it in your community? Take time this month to learn more about these programs and what they can do for the future of our country.

Jeanne Storm is the Associate Executive Director of PDK International and oversees the Future Educators Association®, a member of the PDK family of associations. The Future Educators Association® is a federally-recognized CTSO that enhances the co-curricular program for students interested in education-related careers by providing personal growth opportunities through recognition and leadership activities directly related to the education profession.

First in the series Raising Teachers

The classroom of high school biology students is full of kids with varying abilities, interests, and passions. Are there any future teachers in the bunch? Does the biology teacher see any potential future colleagues? What about the principal? As educators do we ever stop and consider that a couple of our current students could one day become the teachers down the hall?

When I was a kid I loved music. My mom got me started on piano lessons and before long it was fun and I enjoyed playing. But I never thought about teaching piano as a career until my music teacher suggested that I might consider it. Having that adult, someone I admired and respected, take interest in my future was enough to make me start down the path toward becoming a music teacher. I diverged slightly from the path, teaching elementary education instead of music, but the bug was in my ear that I just might have what it takes to teach. For me, this turned into a rich and rewarding career. Thanks Mrs. Appleby – you were right!

Teachers have the unique ability to select and cultivate their future colleagues from the middle and high school students they teach. Given that good education depends so much on the quality of the educators, we owe it to ourselves and future generations to encourage students with the right skills to consider the calling. When we see students that we’d like to join us in the teaching force are we encouraging them to consider becoming a teacher? Are we providing that student with opportunities to explore the teaching career?  Are we creating meaningful opportunities such as job shadowing, peer tutoring, and even high school course work in education?

Let’s start encouraging the students we’d like to see teaching in tomorrow’s classrooms to consider careers in education. Let’s give them a taste of what teaching can be like and start encouraging them to give the career consideration. Researchers have determined that the single most powerful variable in determining if a high school student would consider teaching as a career option was simply whether or not other individuals had discussed the career choice with the student. When a trusted, respected adult (like my Mrs. Appleby) takes the time to talk about a career in education students listen. Let’s start talking!

Educators have the power to hand select, cultivate, and nurture their future colleagues. Look no further than your classrooms… and pick wisely.

Jeanne Storm is the Associate Executive Director of PDK International and oversees the Future Educators Association®, a member of the PDK family of associations. She is joining the PDK blog to write about her experience recruiting creative young people into the teaching profession and providing them with opportunities for exploring teaching and learning in new and innovative ways.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is strangling our schools. On that fact, both Democrats and Republicans agree. Is that enough to ensure that Congress and the President will agree on terms to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as NCLB in this, the 112^th Congress? Based upon meetings and conversations I had last week in Washington, I’m not so sure. Here’s what I know.

The Senate plans to produce a marked-up version of ESEA by April, and that’s possible. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) remains chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and has embraced many of the President’s proposals included in his document, “ESEA Reauthorization; A Blueprint for Reform,” issued last year. The blueprint aims to correct problems with NCLB that created incentives for states to lower standards, overlooked student growth and progress in favor of absolute scores, and took a one-size-fits-all approach to interventions for struggling schools.

The House of Representatives however is a different matter. First, because Republicans are in the majority, the Committee on Education and Labor has a new chairman, John Kline (R-MN). We met with Rep. Kline and he was very candid with us.

While he reassured us that the work accomplished during the last session would not be lost, he advised us not to expect much legislative activity quickly, and he cited two reasons. First, the House has 62 new members, almost all Republicans. They need time to acclimate to Washington and Rep. Kline needs time to understand their issues. Second, the House will reassert its oversight responsibilities. Oversight becomes secondary when the administration and Congress are of the same political party, regardless of whether it’s Republican or Democrat. Yet it becomes more important when the president represents one party and the House or Senate is ruled by the other.

Continuing, Rep. Kline said NCLB is deeply flawed. He believes it resulted in a serious overreach by the federal government in education. Thus, legislative proposals from the House will rollback many current components of NCLB, probably more than the President would prefer.

Further complicating reauthorization, the new Speaker the House John Boehner dislikes long and complicated bills like NCLB (it’s over 1,100 pages). He will insist the current version be divided into pieces, possibly aligned with the titles, i.e., Title I, Title II, etc. This will raise challenges for the House and Senate to create compromise legislation.

Expect conflict between the administration and both House and Senate over: the four turnaround models incorporated in the School Improvement Grant initiative, the proposal to provide some Title I funding through competitive grants versus a formula approach, and questions about Race to the Top (RttT). The president will highlight RttT in his State of the Union address, but don’t expect Congress to be as enamored with the program as he is.

What I describe does not present insurmountable roadblocks to repairing the damage done by NCLB. There is bipartisan agreement that it is deeply flawed and needs repair. We’ll see if that’s enough to cause the President and leaders in both houses of Congress to work together. If not, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan does hold a trump card, as he can use his power to modify regulations created by NCLB.

Bill