Yesterday I promised to rate President Obama's stimulus plan in terms of its reform-friendliness. But what a difference a day makes; now that the Senate has moved to strip the most interesting provisions from the House stimulus bill, it begs a question: which plan is Obama's? And what role is he playing in these deliberations? It's hard to know from the outside, so I'm going to make an executive decision and assume that the Obama team had more of an impact on the House bill than the Senate one, so that's what's worth evaluating with our Reform-o-Meter.
As I've explained before, it's hard to see this huge spending bill doing much to "stimulate" education reform. Budget cuts are painful, but they can force school districts (all organizations, really) to make tough decisions that they might otherwise put off but which can lead to greater effectiveness down the road. In education, that means: rethinking overly generous pension promises that we can't afford; reconsidering salary boosts for master's degrees that have no relation to improved student achievement; allowing class sizes to rise modestly; and eliminating the least effective staff, whether they be administrators, bureaucrats, or teachers. By making school budgets whole, the big stimulus bill will push these actions off to another day, while adding to the debt on national credit card.
On the other hand, the House bill isn't a complete disaster for reform, because it at least includes some goodies in its Santa Claus sack: money for charter school facilities; dollars for teacher merit pay; a promise that charter schools will have equal access to the federal largesse; investments in state data systems that could (one day) be used to tie student achievement to individual teachers. And, let's face it, the federal funds will also help to protect good charter schools and keep Teach For America teachers from losing their jobs, which are worth feeling good about.
So on our scale (from Ice Cold to Red Hot), I think the House bill deserves a rating of Chilly. As for its importance, I'd rank it a 5--only because what really matters are the details in the final stimulus plan. If Congressional negotiators and the Obama Administration decide to split the middle between the two bills, expect that rating to be a whole lot chillier. Stay tuned! And offer your own rating on the House bill below.
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