Hey everyone, this is part number two of our discussion on school reform, from ESEA TO ESSA.
It picks up right where we left off in part number one. Welcome back!
Rick: I mean, if you think over the course of the decades you spent, you know, from the
Nixon White House to working in the Reagan Department of Education and onward, are there
lessons that stick out in your mind, things that you've learned that maybe shoulda been
painfully obvious at the beginning but weren't?
Checker: Well, let's be clear, nothing is ever painfully obvious at the beginning of
any public policy.
Every public policy that I have ever encountered at any level of government is a set of hopes
and compromises.
It is never based on proven certainty and universal agreement.
And incidentally, this is the same...it's true in the medical field except there, the
FDA attempts for you to demonstrate safety and efficacy before you do it on a large scale.
Well, we've never required social policy to demonstrate either safety or efficacy, certainly
not efficacy, before you undertake it.
And so a lotta this is on a kinda wish, and a hope, and a conjecture, and response to
a pressure group, and a compromise with the people that don't wanna it to happen.
So you always end up doing part of what you want to do.
So you...the original voucher experimented in America known as the Alum Rock experiment,
I believe this goes back to the '70s in California, was supposed to experiment with vouchers.
By the time it was compromised into occurring, it was limited to public schools in the desert.
That's where Alum Rock is.
And only public schools could participate.
So what kind of a voucher experiment is that?
Rick: And yet RAND Corporation got three volumes out of its evaluation.
Checker: Well RAND benefited.
My mentor, the late Pat Moynihan, always referred to what he called, "Feeding the sparrows by
feeding the horses."
We were trying to help poor people get to better schools in Alum Rock, but in fact,
we're helping the PhDs at the RAND Corporation to get publications and bigger paychecks.
Rick: If you think about...when you think about it this way, is there a policy that
comes to mind that people really got it right?
It was...that it worked the way folks intended for it to work?
That you were impressed by the skill of the policy makers?
Checker: Well, worked in the...always in a limited way without regard for the unintended
consequences, okay?
I mean, the race to the top certainly proved that if you dangle a bunch of federal money
in front of states in order to get them to do things differently, they will respond.
At least they will go through the motions of promising to respond in order to get the
money.
This is a pretty simple Pavlovian response to, in this case, bunch of federal money.
It works, okay?
Are the...did they live up to their promises?
Did the things they promised to do work well?
Did they always do what they promised?
Were the premises behind the promises sound?
You get into tricky areas as the race to the top did.
And among other things, incidentally, it led us into the whole debacle over Common Core
Standards, the race to the top effort did.
And as a result, our effort to improve academic standards for kids around the country encountered
many setbacks due to the controversy over Common Core which was triggered by race to
the top, okay?
It was a legitimate effort to get states to pledge to higher standards.
Rick: Is there an example of a policy where you're like, "Wow, that created much less
blowback," and many of you are perverse incentives than some of these other initiatives?
Checker: The 65 mile an hour speed limit?
Rick: What's the funny thing there?
That's right, there's not a lot of delicacy around implementation, you...
Checker: And there're cameras now all over the place.
They periodic nab me, not usually at 65, it's in the 25 mile an hour zones.
But yes, the...and there's blowback, of course.
Everybody hates those cameras, I mean, with a fury, and now they have to put up signs
telling you there's a camera because some secret camera is utterly unacceptable in America.
So they put up a sign saying there's a camera, and then they see if you can slow down in
response.
I mean, this is a simple-minded example.
It has nothing directly to do with education.
Rick: Although, I mean, it's similar to class size limits or textbook procurement requirements,
that policy seems to work pretty well when there's not a lotta room for the cup to slip
between the...whereas when we get to more complicated stuff, it often seems...
Checker: Well, I'm gonna push back on you.
Class size limits have produced all kinds of perverse consequences where less competent
teachers have been employed in order to reduce class sizes.
Do kids benefit from a smaller class with a worse teacher?
Okay, yeah it works in that you can make somebody reduce their class size by building more classrooms,
which incidentally is a construction cost, and hiring more teachers, which is a quality
question.
So good policy, bad policy.
Rick: You know, Checker, you've been mentoring folks coming into this space for a long time
now, especially for viewers who maybe are thinking about going to education like you
once were, or who are only a little ways into their career, what are...are there...is there
other thoughts, other suggestions, is there a little wisdom you've shared over time with
folks about how to be effective at this, about how to think about what it means to be a positive
force when it comes to education policy?
Checker: Well the first point is this is a field worth being in and important to be in,
and you shouldn't swap it for Goldman Sachs or your father's law firm.
This is important for the country, it's important for kids, it's important for a lotta good
reasons that people work hard in this field, and millions of people do, including millions
of people whose most important work is being in the classroom with those kids every single
day.
So I...hats off to them.
For people that are gonna work in sort of the policy and research space, I...stick with
it, think big, but don't expect big things.
Important to put your eye on big goals, like whether it's more choices, or higher standards,
or greater accountability, or better teachers.
I mean, there's some big topics, and it's worth getting to be a bit of a specialist
and sort of knowing something about the ins and outs of a big topic.
But don't expect that big topic to yield a big change the day after tomorrow because
they're all incremental in the real world, which can get people frustrated, and kind
of impatient, and then wanna drop out and, I don't know, make stained glass windows or
join Goldman Sachs.
Don't do that either.
Stick with it.
Take an occasional hiatus.
Think about something else.
Take up woodworking on the side, but stick with it because this is, again, this is, I
won't say it's God's work, but this is really important work for the country.
Rick: And then this point about patience.
I mean, it's hard to be patient and especially if you finally get into a position of authority
at a foundation, or in Washington, or a state legislature, there's a sense to say,...
Checker: Or the Oval Office.
Rick: ..."I've got my opportunity by gosh.
I'm gonna do something big and dramatic."
And how does one...should one resist the temptation?
How does one [SP]?
Checker: Well, it's irresistible because everybody knows that their time in the spotlight is
limited and that somebody else will be in charge four years, five years, two years later.
That's why every president is told, "What you do in your first year is the only thing
you'll ever be remembered for because it's the only chance you've got of getting anything
enacted.
So put everything out there all at once."
And of course, they never get everything they want, but there is some wisdom at least in
electoral politics to getting started quickly before the next election comes around, both
so you have something to show in the next election, hopefully, and so that you don't
wait for the next election to sweep you out of office.
So no, you'll never...in government, you'll never acquire total patience because you're
vulnerable to the next cycle taking over.
But as a career, you can be patient and work at different angles from different places
and still be pursuing sorta loosely speaking, the same goals in different ways.
So I...I mean, I haven't mostly held the same job for very long, but I think I've pretty
much pursued similar goals from different places.
Rick: If you had a chance to have a do-over on one thing that you did or didn't do, or
wrote or said, is there's something that...because I think we've all had lots of those, and sometimes
it's interesting hear kind of somebody else.
Checker: Well there's little stuff, like you never would've written the email that you
accidentally sent to the wrong person.
I mean, we've all had those, where we have to apologize because the address got wrong
and somebody shouldn't have seen it, saw it.
So that's the easy stuff.
The big stuff is hard to do over because so often the lesson took a while to learn, like
the enthusiasm for a policy change that occurred and then applauding it, encouraging it.
I remember sitting in the East Room in 1981...sorry, in 2001 when George W. Bush and Rod Paige
announced the No Child Left Behind Act, okay, applauding vigorously at this attempt to import
the successes of Texas and imply them to the whole country.
Made sense of the time, okay, should I have applauded?
Should I have even been in the East Room?
I mean, it took years.
You and I five years later started writing stuff about this isn't working.
But I didn't know it in 2001 or when it got enacted in 2002.
It still felt right at the time.
Four years later, I could see things weren't working so well, but I don't know that that
means I shouldn't have been applauding in the East Room.
Rick: Now last question.
You made mention of, you know, people can get into this work by becoming educators and
there's also people who get into this space where they advocate or make policy.
We've seen a lot of harsh words between people in classrooms and people in these advocacy
and governmental roles over the last 5, 10, 15 years, going back probably forever.
How do you think about that divide and what are ways to work constructively, approach
it, or bridge it?
Checker: Well I'm not totally allergic to harsh words and I'm not a deep believer in
kumbaya policy.
My most dreaded phrase is, "Let's round up the stakeholders and see if they can agree
on," because the only thing you ever get out of those meetings is, "Let's have more of
what we're doing now," and...
Rick: And more meetings.
Checker: And more meetings.
And everybody at the table should get a larger slice of a growing pie.
So I really do believe that most policy choices have winners and losers, or better put, people
who feel like this was worth doing and people who feel aggrieved that it was done or decided,
okay, and then they will fight back, and push back, and there will be a course correction
later.
I mean, I think this is legitimate [SP].
I also think that policy people and classroom practitioners, for example, really are looking
at different parts of this elephant.
The...you know, some are touching the leg and some are touching the ear, and it's not...this
doesn't feel like the same creature.
Ultimately, it's the same elephant, but what they're...what they think it is and their
ability to push or tug is gonna be very different.
So I think...I've got huge respect for people who are in the classroom with 9-year-olds,
6 hours a day, 180 days a year, but I also have huge respect for people who...whether
they're governor, or a school superintendent, or an anxious parent, who try to change the
circumstance in which those people in the 4th grade classroom are practicing their craft.
Rick: So how much in your view then are these concerns about, you know, "war on teachers",
the one sees [SP] the unions talk about?
How much of that is a product of honest disagreement between the people in the schools, and folks
who touch the elephant and see the elephant differently, and how much is people talking
past one another, or talking a different language?
Checker: It's a lot of the latter.
I mean, it's really a war on teachers, incidentally.
It's usually war on teacher unions which the union refracts as a war on teachers.
And usually the people who are who are seeking change, are seeking change in the rules by
which teachers are trained, compensated, deployed, evaluated, things like that.
Is that a war on teachers or is that a war for better teachers, for more kids?
But the...whether it's the ed [SP] schools, or the unions, or the whoever is inconvenienced
by the proposed change, or whose interests are threatened by the proposed change, will
immediately declare that is a war on teachers rather than a war on bad ed schools, or impossibly
obdurate teacher unions?
Rick: So final thought, Checker, it's 2017, Donald Trump is in the White House.
ESSA is the educational law of the land.
After a half century of doing this work, are you more or less optimistic than you were
when you were inspired by LBJ in '65?
Checker: Well, I'm less naive.
I'm probably less optimistic in the short run, but I'm no less committed to the battle
that this entails on behalf of kids that need a better shot and a country that needs a better
educated population.
So I haven't given up and I'm not depressed by anything around us, but I no longer expect
overnight turnover and I do expect these things to have cycles that I don't think I understood
in 1965, where we will move, you know, 100 yards in this direction and then we'll move
50 yards in this direction, then we'll back up 10 yards.
Rick: Checker, thank you so much for taking the time.
Checker: Happy to do.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching part number two of this series on school reform from ESEA to ESSA.
If you enjoyed what you saw, remember to like the video or leave us a comment.
That's the end of this series on school reform from ESEA to ESSA,
but be sure to check out the rest of our videos and research from AEI.