Joint Statement of Organizations

The Republican Main Street Partnership
-- With the NEA

On April 12, the Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP) is sponsoring a briefing at the Capitol Hill Club on "The Role of the Federal Government in Making our Schools Safe for Students and Teachers." The RMSP has just released a report entitled Defining the Federal Role in Education: A Republican Perspective. A letter from Congressman Mike Castle, the task force co-chair, states that "One of the strengths of this task force is that we brought together leaders in the business community, the education community, and the political community."

The sole representative of the education community turns out to be Mary Elizabeth Teasley, the NEA's Director of Government Relations -- that is, its chief lobbyist. It is a stretch to characterize Teasley as from the educational community; her background is Democratic politics, not education, but having a high ranking NEA official as the sole representative of the education community is a strange way to build Republican confidence in a report.

Not surprisingly, the "Republican Perspective" includes lavish praise for NEA President Bob Chase, without any supporting data except Chase's own statements about his role as NEA president. RMSP's executive director, Steve Gunderson, the individual responsible for designating the members of the task force asserted that the task force had consulted other educators, but he refused to disclose who they were.

The RMSP perspective is summarized in six principles that are supposed to govern federal education policy. The first is that:

The federal government's primary focus and most basic mission in elementary-secondary education should be in support of our public schools, seeking equal opportunity for all children. With 90% of our nation's children attending public schools, we must commit ourselves to providing the world's best public education system.

The unstated logic is that if 90 percent of consumers get their services from an ineffective, expensive monopoly, providing any alternative for some helps only the pupils who get their educational services from another provider. Imagine a policy stating that "Since 90 percent of our people travel by horse-drawn carriages, we aren't going to consider other means of transportation. Instead, we must have the best horse-drawn carriages in the world."

Significantly, the RMSP statement does not assert that the federal role is to provide the best education; it is to provide the "world's best public education system." This position is right out of the NEA's playbook. The emphasis on 90 percent in public schools is a union argument intended to discourage any legislation that would help parents &endash; even the poorest &endash; transfer their children from public to private schools.

RMSP's second principle is that: "The federal government must provide strong leadership in the articulation of education quality and standards of performance."

This principle is followed by the astounding statement that: "There can be little, if any, debate over the responsibility of the federal government in providing leadership for the improvement of education."

With seven past or present members of Congress on the RMSP board of directors, and with former member Steve Gunderson on the task force, the latter and the RMSP board must have been aware that some Republicans would like to abolish the department. Others wish to eliminate or reduce specific programs, such as the use of federal funds to pay for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, or federal appropriations for educational research. We must assume, therefore, that these differences of opinion are not related to the federal role in providing "leadership" for the improvement of education. So, how does the federal government provide "strong leadership" on the role? The only way cited is to "support innovative research that assists in the development of the best educational programs for use by local education agencies." As will be evident shortly, there is considerable conflict over such support.

With Principle 3, RMSP revealed how little it understands the reasons for the ineffectiveness of federal leadership and public education itself.

We must increase dramatically the federal support for educational research. And we must direct these resources toward comprehensive research of the many reform proposals being advanced today.

The explanation refers to the federal outlay of $210 million for educational research as an "embarrassment." The figure is indeed an "embarrassment" but not for the reasons cited by RMSP. In the first place, the actual figure is much higher because some federal educational research activities are not labeled educational research. Second, there are about 35,000 professors of education in the United States; most receive load credit for research. In addition, many professors in economics, sociology, law, and other disciplines are routinely allowed load credit for educational research.

If one adds the appropriate proportion of these salaries and benefits, the salaries and benefits of their support staff, and the expenses of office space, supplies, and equipment, it is evident that we are spending several billion a year on educational research, not including research by for profit companies and nonprofits, such as Educational Testing Service.

The question to be asked is not how much does the federal government spend for educational research. It is why the huge amounts spent on educational research do not make any difference in practice.

Principle 5 and its rationale are as follows:

5. The federal government should encourage the best and the brightest of America's young people to become teachers.

The federal government should adopt policies to help educate and recruit bright young people for the teaching profession. Program improvements in the nation's teacher colleges should be encouraged and, at times, funded. Additional resources for national scholarships should be appropriated and made available. Student loans should be partially or completely forgiven for those teachers who spend a minimum number of years in the classroom. The federal government also should retrain teachers currently in the classroom; retraining in every field is made necessary by today's pace of technological innovation. And every attempt should be made to improve teacher pay, benefits, working environment and stature in the community. Our nation expects excellence from people who are regularly underpaid and who work under difficult conditions. (Italics in original)

These recommendations can be summarized easily: Spend more money for the same educational system that we have now. The upshot is that the report would reinforce some of the most negative features of the existing system. For example, about ninety-eight percent of public school teachers are paid strictly on the basis of their academic credit and years of teaching experience. Subjects taught and grade level are irrelevant. Consequently, potential teachers with talents that can earn a great deal more in the private sector do not become teachers; this is why the schools are experiencing crippling shortages of mathematics and science teachers. The talent required to be a good teacher in these fields commands higher salaries in the private sector. The obvious solution is to pay such teachers more than teachers in fields that are oversupplied, even at present levels of compensation.

Unfortunately, the teacher unions are adamantly opposed to this solution because it would lead to internal union conflict over which teachers should be paid more and which ones should be paid less. The unions cite the shortages in the scarce fields to justify raising every teacher's salary. The outcome is that the only way that school districts can pay enough to attract good mathematics and science teachers is to pay all teachers much more than is necessary to recruit good teachers in other fields.

We are not critical of the task force report because it embraces the NEA line, directly or by implication. Our criticisms are based on the flaws in the policies, not the fact that the NEA promotes the policies. Nevertheless, it is surprising to see any Republican members of Congress allow their names to be used to support such a hopeless educational agenda.

The preface to the report states that:

The Task Force membership, as individuals, endorse the direction and basic themes of this monograph. Obviously, individual members do not agree on every item and recommendation. We hope that no one member nor his/her professional association will be held responsible for any specific recommendation included in this report.

This disclaimer is an evasion of accountability. Ordinarily, members of a task force report take specific exception to items with which they disagree; however, the disclaimer in this report means that we do not know who is responsible for what in the report. If five of the seven members of the task force support a recommendation, each can point to the others as responsible for it.

Make no mistake, Defining the Federal Role in Education will be extremely valuable to the NEA. It will cite the report to its members and the media to demonstrate that the NEA is "bipartisan." The fact that the NEA printed the report at its own expense is only one indication of its value to a union which has enthusiastically endorsed Vice-President Gore for president. Unfortunately, the report is an assertion of educational bankruptcy that should be rejected by anyone interested in educational improvement.