Is Obama Open To Education Reform?

After watching President Obama's first prime time press conference from the White House, I want to highlight a section on education for readers of New Majority. It will likely receive little attention given the stimulus bill and other assorted crises, but it provided a road-map for possible future center-right cooperation with the administration on education reform that could move Democrats beyond a reflexive UFT defense and liberal positional bargaining.

I think there are areas like education, where some in my party have been too resistant to reform, and have argued only money makes a difference. And there have been others on the Republican side or the conservative side who said, no matter how much money you spend, nothing makes a difference, so let's just blow up the public school systems. And -- and I think that both sides are going to have to acknowledge we're going to need more money for new science labs, to pay teachers more effectively. But we're also going to need more reform, which means that we've got to train teachers more effectively; bad teachers need to be fired after being given the opportunity to train effectively; that we should experiment with things like charter schools that are innovating in the classroom; that we should have high standards.

This is not a slam-dunk statement of agreement – its got Obama's patented "on the one hand, on the other" framing – but it shows that Obama is open to solutions on education, even and especially on traditional Democrat third-rail issues, like teacher accountability, standards and charter schools. And while he does not say it here, Obama has in the past indicated support for merit pay as well. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is not as aggressive a reformer as Michelle Rhee, but there may be room for Republicans to work with the administration and allies like Newark Mayor Corey Booker to implement further education reforms – because no one can seriously argue that the inner city status quo is working.