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From The Field

Four Rio Grande Valley corps members— all former students of Anne Sung (R.G.V. '00)—reflect on the rewards of teaching in
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With $100 billion and a historic opportunity for reform, could this be A New Beginning for American education?

With an astounding $100 billion flowing into education from the federal stimulus package—close to double last year’s discretionary spending budget for education—
America’s education system is poised for dramatic reform. The opportunities are immense, but so are the risks. Money alone cannot fix the country’s schools or close the achievement gap. Founder and CEO of New Leaders for New Schools Jon Schnur, who served as senior advisor to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for the last five months, talked with One Day editor Ting Yu about the Obama administration’s political will to change education, and what it will take— from all of us—for this effort to succeed.

A conversation with Jon Schnur

Ting Yu: There is so much excitement and energy around the possibilities for education right now. How would you describe the Obama administration’s central strategy for education reform?

Jon Schnur: First of all, President Obama and Secretary Duncan have placed a tremendous focus on the importance of education and getting much better results for our kids, especially those in poverty. Even before you get to the question of strategy, you cannot have a successful strategy without relentless focus from the leader of an institution. We have that relentless focus from both the president and the secretary of education.
First, they see that there are examples of classrooms and schools where kids from all backgrounds are in fact achieving at high levels. This is not just an aspiration, this is reality. The central question is, how do we take what has been happening at small scale to a really broad nationwide scale, in order to both fuel our economic competitiveness and really achieve better social justice in this country?

I would say the second tenet that guides everything is a
very pragmatic focus on what works. There is not really an attachment to a particular ideological approach. Given that, they are focusing on a big investment in both expanded access to and quality in early childhood education. The research is really clear that if you [provide] quality early childhood education, it pays off in a huge way over time.

Secondly, they have proposed dramatic steps to improve student achievement in K-12 public schools. That includes calling for much higher standards and expectations for all our kids, much-higherquality assessments that are aligned to that, and above all, an intense focus on talent. They recognize that the most significant in-school factor driving student achievement improvements is the quality of teaching, and the second-most is the quality of the principal. They are very focused on how to help attract, retain, develop, and compensate a whole profession of results-oriented educators to deliver much better results for our kids.

Finally, they are very focused on postsecondary education— how to expand both access to and affordability of college education and to drive better outcomes, including better retention rates and better completion rates at the college level.

TY: What do you see as some of the major challenges to executing on these?

JS: The first big challenge, I think, is probably public attitudes. There still are too many people in the country who do not believe that kids in poverty can achieve at high levels,
and do not have a sense of confidence about the strategies that we can take as adults to deliver on our kids’ potential. I think changing that set of attitudes is going to be crucial in order to make a lot of policy reforms successful.

The second challenge, I would say, is capacity: the human and the organizational capacity to deliver, execute on, and implement effective reforms. [Having] more Teach For America corps members who stay in education in some way and continue to play significant leadership roles—whether at the classroom level, the principal level, the school-system level— and devote years and years of their lives in order to help build the capacity of our school systems and communities to deliver a great education for kids, is really crucial.

TY: So how do you change the public attitude?

JS: The most important step is for more and more educators to keep delivering incredible results for kids and creating more real on-the-ground examples of where and how kids—including kids in poverty—really achieve at high levels. The president and the secretary can help highlight those examples, using the bully pulpit and funding programs at the national level, to help the public understand what our kids are capable of achieving, what our adults are helping our kids achieve, and how that can be done at a greater scale.

TY: On the issue of human capital, what do you see as the key strategies that the federal government can pursue to recruit and increase the effectiveness of teachers, principals, and human capital in education more broadly?

JS: The federal government cannot do everything. Education is a state responsibility and a local activity. At the federal level, there are a few things the government can do in terms
of attracting and retaining people in the profession. Number one is simply focusing relentlessly on education. The fact that the president, the first lady, the vice president, and the secretary are so focused on education and better results for our kids—that in itself creates an education sector that is going to be more attractive to people who want to be doing
what is important for our country.

Secondly, the creation of much clearer and more rigorous standards for what all kids should know and high-quality assessments with useful data that come to educators will make the teaching profession a much more attractive place for the right educators.

Third and finally, there are a set of human capital reforms that can help. Providing significant rewards [is one example], including compensation for teachers who work at highneeds
schools, for teaching shortage subject areas, and [for] delivering better results for kids.
That blend of prioritization of education, reforms to make the education sector a more goal-driven place, and the support to specifically attract and reward outstanding educators,
together can really help move the dial and make the profession a much more attractive place for teachers to come and stay.

TY: In the president’s recent address on education, he spoke about how politics has at times been an enemy of progress in education. How does this dministration plan to work collaboratively with teachers unions and others in the education
establishment to make change?

JS: The president has made clear that his primary goal in education—his overwhelming goal in education—is to do what is in the interest of our children. He also believes there is a
lot of expertise to tap into around the country [on] improving education, and that those educators—especially those who have really demonstrated an ability to get great results for
kids—have incredibly important perspectives to bring [to] policy and reform strategies. The president has made clear he wants to do things with teachers, not to teachers. I think he is going to be listening to teachers very carefully.

One last thing I would say is that I think the president and secretary believe that we all need to make some changes. School systems need to adapt what they are doing in some dramatic ways; teachers and unions need to modernize and adapt what they are doing; charter school organizations, Congress, Washington, and the politics of education need to be adapted. There is no institution that is exempt from the need for change in order to better serve our kids.

TY: On the trickier issues of performance pay and teacher tenure, for example, what would you say to those who believe that real progress cannot be made by partnering with unions?

JS: There will always be people who will agree or disagree with a particular policy. The president has made clear that rewarding educators for performance is an important part of
his education reform agenda for the country. He has also made clear that lifting up the profession and making [it] a really attractive place for people to come and stay is key.
Consistent with that, there need to be effective and fast ways to identify those teachers who are not succeeding and give them support. If they cannot improve, then [the next step would be] removing them from the classroom. That is consistent with a profession that really values kids but also values the hard, quality work of its members. The president and the secretary are very committed to those reforms.

Chicago is a great example. Arne Duncan, [when he was] CEO of the [Chicago] school system, created a pay-forperformance plan that was designed by dozens of teachers
in the city of Chicago who spent time figuring out how to actually create a plan that would help support and reward teachers for performance. Then [he], ultimately, got federal
funding [to] implement that in Chicago schools. It is a great example, I think, of how Arne can and does like to work with real classroom teachers on reforms that people a few years ago might have thought were not palatable to some.

TY: Is the secretary going to be working with unions to reach some consensus on how to define teacher effectiveness?

JS: The input of teachers and teachers organizations, along with superintendents and school leaders and other organizations, will be crucial to help inform the conclusions that the secretary comes to.

TY: Will student achievement gains be a key piece in that?

JS: Yes, the administration has already made clear that there is an interest in looking at teacher effectiveness through the lens of student achievement. The [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] assurances ask states to report out the percentage of school systems that have teacher evaluation systems linked to student achievement, for example. The assurances also require that school systems report out the percentage of teachers who are at different performance levels in the teacher evaluation system in the state. That [reporting] is likely to highlight that in many school systems you have 95 percent-plus of teachers ranked excellent or good—which shows that the teacher evaluation system is not actually differentiating based on performance in any significant way. That transparency will create a foundation for calling for vast improvements in those systems, in ways that I think are very likely [to be] tied to student achievement gains in a serious way.

TY: A large portion of the stimulus money is going straight to districts through the existing funding formulas and will be used to fill in budget gaps. How do you see the money achieving the reforms that you want?

JS: First, there is a lot of funding in this Recovery Act that is going to states and school systems that could help avert hundreds of thousands of layoffs and job cuts in education. In
particular, this is relevant to Teach For America. In many cases, the teachers that are laid off are the newest teachers—the youngest teachers—who we need to be pulling into teaching
and to education. So it is just the wrong step to be laying them off in order to get us through a tough economic time.

Secondly, there is a very strong focus on education reform in the Recovery Act. The president and Arne fought very, very hard for that. Specifically, they called for this $5 billion Race to the Top Fund, where states, school systems, and nonprofits are being asked to embrace dramatic reforms in education for really unprecedented competitive grant funding that could
give hundreds of millions of dollars [to each] state that wins. [These reforms range] from setting much higher standards to investing in a revitalized teaching profession to taking
very, very aggressive steps to close and reopen the lowest achieving schools.

In addition, the Recovery Act…requires states to demonstrate progress on putting in place much more transparency around education reform, in exchange for the funding. For example, the draft requirements that have been put out by the department will require all states to track not only whether kids graduate from high school but whether they can matriculate in college without remediation.

TY: There has been some criticism directed at the one-time infusion of funds being discontinued after the two years. What specifically will you focus on that will have long-term benefits but doesn’t require long-term funding?

JS: This $5 billion Race to the Top Fund will be obligated to states by late 2010 but can be used over the next four to five years. There are examples of competitive grant programs that really will be driving long-term reform. Over the next couple years, we will begin to get annual reports on the progress and learning gains of individual students and how those gains compare to [the gains of] similar kids elsewhere in the school system or state. That is an example of where the funding will be available for the short term but it can create the data
systems and the transparency that, we think, will provide much more useful information to educators and others for the long term.

TY: You’re talking about large-scale performance management at a magnitude that no district—much less state—has really been able to pull off before. How are you thinking about building the capacity of states to be able to design and implement these systems effectively?

JS: That is a great and really important question. We see that as a huge priority. We will be making a significant investment in the states that have the courage to really pursue that in the strongest way. Race to the Top will be our best way of assessing and incenting states to really look at the problem, figure out what they need, and build it.

It is incumbent upon states and school systems to recognize that they are not going to be able to pull off these reforms without investing in the human and organizational capacity to design and execute these reforms well. So we will do our part at the federal level, but I think it is an enormous responsibility for every state and school system across America.

TY: Regarding the $650 million What Works Innovation Fund— could you talk about some of the programs that you are most excited about?

JS: The $5 billion Race to the Top Fund includes a $4.35 billion fund for states and then the $650 million Innovation Fund. What is unique about the Innovation Fund is that it does not set requirements for particular programmatic inputs. Instead, the fund requires that grantees—school systems or nonprofits—have demonstrated student achievement results.
It is the track record of student achievement results that can qualify a school system or an organization for a grant. That is important, because often you have debates between Democrats and Republicans about what kind of program they like or what kind of ideology they might prefer, and this Innovation Fund is saying, show us your results, and that is going to be the key qualifying factor in order to be able to get funds.

TY: In his recent speech, Secretary Duncan called for standards that are "college-ready, career-ready, and benchmarked against challenging international standards." How does the administration plan to ensure that states adopt rigorous standards and assessments?

JS: We are not asking teachers and schools to teach everything, but to focus more deeply on what really counts to be ready for success in college and careers. This Race to the Top Fund is really going to incent and support states to move standards and assessments to that level.

TY: Is the administration thinking of forming a state consortium on common standards?

JS: We are looking seriously at options like that. Arne said very clearly, he does not think having 50 different benchmarks makes sense when the level of reading and writing and what it takes to be ready for college or career is not different across the 50 states. We are looking seriously at how we can support states to ensure really rigorous common standards across state lines without them becoming federally mandated standards.

TY: You started and scaled your own social innovation nonprofit, and now you are working to advance reform through government. What do you see as the biggest challenges of doing this from the government side, as compared to working in schools and nonprofits?

JS: Well, I [was] on leave from New Leaders [for New Schools] as a senior advisor to the secretary, seeing both the opportunities and challenges of driving improvement and change from the federal level. What is exciting is that there is an opportunity at the national level, and particularly with this president, to focus the country’s attention on problems that need to be fixed in education and on solutions that can work and be scaled. I think it is also exciting that there are some significant funding streams that are being put in place that are aligned to a kind of “what works” agenda to help kids succeed.

All that said, the reality is that the action in education is in the classroom, in the school, in the school system, and in the charter school network. The greatest challenge we have in this country in education right now is that we have kids, incredibly committed teachers, school leaders, and leaders of school systems and charter networks really doing the hard work day to day of getting these results to greater scale. While the federal government can applaud that, help fund that, and help focus the country on the importance of it, the action is where our teachers and school leaders are. I am reminded of that every day I am sitting in Washington.

It is like in the civil rights movement. It really was the actions of thousands of people working in the communities and making progress, often with good training, support, and some national leadership—but they really were the ones to win the day in the civil rights movement across the country. If you read books on D-Day like Stephen Ambrose’s—he said all the grand plans for D-Day went awry, and it was just small, well-trained and philosophically aligned teams that scaled the cliffs at Normandy and, ultimately, after two weeks realized they had defeated the Nazis and were on track to win World War II.

TY: What role do you believe Teach For America alumni have to play?

JS: I strongly believe that Teach For America alumni and other results-oriented educators serving kids in poverty across this country are going to be the engine for ensuring the success of this stage in the education reform movement. This is not the time for government—this government is a catalyst. This is a time for educators, individually and working together, to deliver vastly better results for kids in classroom after classroom and in school after school. That is what is going to change the course of education in this country over the next several years.