In my junior year of high school, I was caught red handed not signed up for a Fall sports team (we were required to participate in one every season). I was guilty, had no defense, was unceremoniously marched over to the cross-country team and “volunteered”. For the record, this was and remains the harshest punishment ever exacted upon my person.

I showed up every day and did only that which was required, nothing more (sometimes less).

When we competed in a race, though I usually came in last, (I thought) I crossed each finish line in style, sprinting with my last reserves of energy. But it was all for show. Those who stuck around to actually see me finish saw only this explosion of effort and quite rightly wondered why I had not doled it out over the entire course.

It was a sad display of ego and false enthusiasm.

And I am reminded almost daily of this as states rush education legislation through their political machines. One by one, Illinois, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Delaware, Tennessee and their neighbors sprint across the finish line just in time for their ‘Race to the Top’ applications to have a little more content to accompany their creative writing.

What if they had been working on these education efforts over time, with focus and determination? What if they had trained a little harder in order to move beyond the superficial? What if they had made changes to their schools just because it was necessary and right, rather than lucrative?

I was never going to be a cross-country runner, and my finish line sprints proved that. Will the same be true of states in the ‘Race to the Top’?

Today’s speech by Randi Weingarten of the AFT exemplifies what’s wrong with teachers unions and their control over America’s education system. Randi made news today by announcing that she’d be willing to incorporate student test data in teacher evaluations-but she also listed a litany of other things (including “portfolios”) that should be included.

I’m not impressed.

I simply don’t see why the concept of putting student learning first is so challenging for Ms. Weingarten. Her attempts to pacify those who want to see bad teachers removed from the classroom and off of the public payroll lack specifics. What will she do to remove the stranglehold that her union has over principals across America when it comes to terminating the employment of people who cannot teach - so that we can rightly elevate and compensate those teachers who can? What I see is an ‘our way or no way’ approach by the AFT that neither benefits children to the fullest nor serves the best interests of her members.

Finally, any speech on “reform” by Ms. Weingarten is specious, given that her union claims to want the “best” schools for children. This can’t be true, or else she and her allies would be fighting for school choice programs, not standing in the schoolhouse doors blocking the exits for low-income children.

Randi Weingarten fails to impress once again.

When is a charter law not a charter law? When is a charter school not a charter school?

Ask Mississippi.

Like a thief in the night, July 1st of this year came and went, slipping out the back door with the Magnolia State’s charter law as legislators allowed it to sunset without even a word.

Nobody seemed to notice. Not the press. Not the bloggers. Not the major edreform players. We didn’t even mention it, but in our defense, it was really hot that day and we were planning a cookout.

Another group that likely missed the significance of the loss of the law: the faculty and students of Mississippi’s lone charter school - The Hayes Cooper Center.

The school was basically a glorified magnate school, did not have true autonomy and was tied to the school district in so many ways as to make it indistinguishable from its conventional counterparts.

Each year, we analyze and grade the country’s charter school laws, assigning a letter grade to each.  Last year, Mississippi received an ‘F’ with an analysis that placed it last among the (then) 41 laws.

Certainly, The Hayes Cooper Center probably didn’t feel much different as kids ran out to greet the first day of Summer than it did when they trudged back for Fall classes.

And it was Mississippi’s weak law - one that its lead architect later referred to as “the sorriest” in the nation - that allowed this to happen.

The ‘Race to the Top’ competition has placed a national spotlight on charter schools and charter legislation as lawmakers everywhere begin to tinker with theirs in order to polish them up before the Department of Education passes judgment in the Spring.

Will their laws shine any brighter than Mississippi’s? Certainly. But, while the Mississippi law contained glaring obstacles to charter realization, will they remove even those subtle barriers from their laws that block growth and success for schools and for students? What we’ve seen so far raises grave doubts.

At least when CER’s grades are released next week, they’ll know where they stand and, hopefully, who to emulate.

(HINT: The country’s strongest charter law was never batted around a State House.)

Despite the adage that you get more bees with honey, I will not sit idly by and allow Congressman Jose Serrano, Democrat from Bronx, NY, write an opinion for The Washington Post that is layered with obfuscation and misperceptions, without calling him on it.

Serrano is suddenly the focus of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program’s supporters, forced by the unique circumstances of the federal government’s oversight of the District of Columbia, which he manages as chair of a nebulous Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government. Serrano is apparently angered that this position begets him calls from all over the nation - from people of all stripes and walks of life, who want children to have what they deserve and rarely get in the District’s traditional public schools - a good education that is also safe, also preparatory for life.

Serrano’s attitude to these calls - and the children affected - can best be considered ignorance. He says that local people should lobby their local leaders, as if their local leaders have the authority to spend federal money. By doing so, he also ignores that local people HAVE lobbied local leaders - tens of thousands of them - and those local leaders have endorsed the program and written Congress about that endorsement. The Mayor, the Chancellor of the city’s schools, a majority of the City Council, the former Mayor, the former City Council Education Chair, the Mayor’s staff. These are not Republicans, as Serrano wants us all to believe. These are Democrats, and predominantly people of color, who understand and care deeply about the people of this city, and who are happy to draw help from anyone who can or would want to help them, regardless of affiliation.

That’s what it means to be a true democrat - an individual open to many viewpoints and voices, which apparently, Serrano is not.

Finally, a word from a person who actually has deeper roots in the Bronx than he. My grandparents settled in the Bronx in the early part of the last century, and my mother was raised there. I grew up attending family functions in the Bronx. The area started as an enclave for European immigrants and over time, evolved into an enclave for immigrants from throughout our continent, drawing people of Latino descent from throughout the Hemisphere. But the people who populate the area are no less interested in great education than my ancestors. And today, despite the best of intentions by area leaders, the Bronx is ailing, with poverty and gangs just two of the indicators. But schools are slowly helping turn around the younger generation, thanks to charter schools that the city, the state, and education entrepreneurs have worked together to create. This is just one form of choice that exists. The same people Congressman Serrano proudly represent also draw heavily on Catholic schools. They would probably shudder if they knew that their Congressman opposed any opportunity out of poverty for those disadvantaged by circumstance, in any city. Indeed, Serrano’s own constituents rely heavily upon religious institutions to help them provide food, shelter, clothing and all social services to their community. Not one block in the Bronx is without a religious organization, most of which draw federal and state funds to help the state administer programs for the needy.

Such aid seems not to bother Congressman Serrano, even though the same principle is at work in the DC scholarship program he apparently abhors. That program provides federal funds in the form of scholarships to ensure that more children have access to poverty-fighting institutions, and they are only spent by the choice of Americans, living in the District, who want something better for their children.

And so I ask you, Congressman Serrano — How dare you write that this is a program whose fate lies in the hands of local leaders when you’ve made it clear you control the appropriations process for DC programs like this one? How dare you say this is a program that was imposed on the District by Republicans, when the individuals who fought tirelessly for years to see it enacted, and who still lobby you for its continuation are as varied in their composition as the neighborhood you call home?

Oppose the program if you wish, but don’t lie and say you do so because the program was imposed by Republicans and not supported locally. Tell the truth. And then stop complaining about how many calls you are getting from people around the country that support the program.  They pay your salary, and they want you to do your job, objectively, and without bias. And with appreciation for the needs of the people you serve.

Tomorrow, on his continuing education tour, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be joined in Philadelphia by two gentlemen who because of their obvious differences on many levels are called the Odd Couple of education.  I applaud strange bedfellows - when they make things happen for kids. With this one, I’m not so sure.

The first real Odd Couples of education led some of the nation’s most fundamental shifts in education, shifts that had once been considered radical.  Looking back through the past sixteen years, it’s clear that while education reform has changed dramatically, broad, mainstream support for bold changes in education existed then, just as they do now.  It was just much less hip to say so.

Then, policymakers who led the fight for charter schools, merit pay (as it was called in those days), vouchers and the like were accused of being part of the vast right wing conspiracy and generally anti-public education, despite the fact that such nomenclature didn’t fit then, just as it does not now. CER’s first work celebrated legislators like Pennsylvania Democrat Dwight Evans, who joined hands with Republican Tom Ridge to pass that state’s charter bill.  Miami Urban League head T. Willard Fair teamed up with Governor Jeb Bush to bring vouchers to Florida, following in the steps of Representative Polly Williams, a former Black Panther, in league with conservative Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson.

These were the first, real Odd Couples of the modern education reform movement.  They were bold, tenacious, and courageous to cross party lines, incur the wrath of unions together and suffer all sorts of education establishment slurs.

More “Gingrich and Sharpton – An Odd Couple for Education, But Not the First”