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5.4.6 Federal Government
The
federal governments role is an even more iffy role because there are a
whole lot of folks who really believe that the federal government shouldn't
have any role. I'm not one of them. I believe the federal government should
have a big role in education, much bigger than it now has. How's that
for a controversial statement? Because I believe if the federal government
had the right kind of role, we would have more local control. Isn't that
a nice contradiction? That the way to get more local control is to have
more federal involvement. If we had clear cut goals and objectives that
are national by definition ...right now the national curriculum is invisible.
We could do a better job of our national curriculum if it were very visible
and very specified but we have a national curriculum, it's just not visible.
But the federal government's role now is limited to special program support
mostly for special populations like special ed, like the handicapped,
like vocational ed. That's where the federal government's role is. I think
that the federal government should have a role in regular education. Now,
it turns out interestingly enough that the federal government is trying
to set voluntary standards. Now I'll say something crazy, I think that
is a sham that the federal government really wants to have required standards
but their calling them voluntary so that they can slip them by people.
Now, I think they should be required. But I don't think we should slip
them by, in other words I'd rather say to people 'Look if we have these
standards lets have standards and recognize why we need them" rather
then try to sell the population standards under the guise that they're
really voluntary and then when they get there wham! They're not voluntary.
I'll tell you what I mean. For example, the SAT is voluntary. The SAT
is not a federal program. The SAT is a private test given by a private
testing service, the Educational Testing Service from Princeton, New Jersey.
So, no one could call the SAT a requirement could they? Ha, Ha,Ha! Just
try to get into colleges without an SAT. Now there are ways around it
, but they are backdoors aren't they? The SAT is a de facto, or its cousin
the ACT, are de facto requirements for college admission. Let's not kid
around about that. Let's understand that that's the way life is and make
decisions based on that. The fact that something is theoretically voluntary
doesn't mean that when it gets in place that it will be voluntary. If
we succeed in getting national standards, and I believe we need to succeed
at that, we're the only nation in the world that doesn't have national
standards and we pay a heavy price for it, but lets get those standards
honestly and openly and not pretend about it. I hate that pretension.
Let's just do it and do it right. Now the most important thing about the
superintendent of schools maybe selecting principals. But officially,
the most important job of the superintendent is public liaison. This is
the person that interprets the school to the community around him or her.
I have to say that working with Roy Nickels the superintendent of Norfolk,
he's a very close friend, he was my student. He got his doctorate with
me at U Mass. So our relationship is a very close relationship of trust.
He is a man of vision, he is a man of responsibility, and he is also a
much better politician than I am because one of the roles of the superintendent
is to be a politician. And there are times I say "Hey Roy, you know
this is really nutty." He says "yeah, but this is as far as
I can push it." So he understands the political requirements of the
job and these political requirements are real. I hassle him for it but
his job is to educate the public so he can go as far as he can go. But
superintendents have to be politicians. Perhaps their most important role
is selecting the principals and their vision of what effective education
is. Vision is such a big thing. Where do you want schools to go? What
do you want kids who you say were educated by the Norfolk public schools
to be able to do and be? What kinds of skills should they have?
What kind of people should they be as citizens? Back to our discussion
last week in terms of being good and smart hopefully, so they are able
to be constructive members of the community. And finally, the superintendent
is responsible for regulatory compliance. I promise you that there are
some superintendents who take that job very, very seriously and their
perception is that "ohh, I'm going to be very careful and never dare
make a mistake to be out of compliance." Other superintendents say,
"hey, I'm going to make some mistakes and when I find a mistake,
I'll correct it." But we're going to be a little looser in terms
of the way we go about responding to regulatory compliance. It's a huge
difference between whether the superintendent sets the mood of being broad
or narrow. It's very interesting even though in the Prime schools we have
official state department of education waivers for virtually everything
we do still the schools are very, very careful not to flaunt their regulatory
discretion because they don't want to bring the house of cards down on
them and have people criticizing them that they're doing things that are
irresponsible. I don't want them to do things that are irresponsible but
I would like for them to be a little more venturesome.
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According
to the instructor, where should the federal government's role lie
in education? |
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Mr. Allen is
a teacher that has come to this area from across the country and
is now considered not certified to teach in this state. Once certified,
Mr. Allen finds that the requirements for teachers here are much
higher than those that he |
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