Lesson plan: Put kids over teachers

Dems explore ways to close achievement gap

By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 25, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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An eclectic mix of Democratic wunderkinds, tough-talking education reformers and one elder statesman - former Gov. Roy Romer - are challenging their party to step away from teachers unions and return to fighting for the educational rights of poor and minority children.

"It is a battle for the heart of the Democratic Party," said Corey Booker, the 39-year-old rising star mayor of Newark, N.J.

"We have been wrong in education," Booker said of his party and its alliances with teachers unions that put adults before children. "It's time to get right."

Booker was among those who appeared Sunday at the Denver Art Museum to challenge the Democratic Party to reconsider its course on education.

In references sometimes veiled and sometimes blunt, they tackled the party's often- cozy relationship with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which typically support - financially and otherwise - Democratic candidates.

"The Democratic Party is supposed to look out for poor and minority kids," said Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. "That's not the dynamic today," said Rhee, who is battling her city's union over a plan to overhaul teacher pay.

The rousing rhetoric shocked John Wilson, executive director of the NEA.

"I was absolutely stunned at the level of union-bashing," Wilson said. "I think leaders who wish to provide a vision and a plan for improving our schools undermine themselves by alienating the teachers . . . who have to carry out that plan."

Challenge for change

Officially titled the "Ed Challenge for Change," the event highlighted a set of principles touted as "new ideas for closing America's devastating achievement gap."

The principles, to those observing education in recent years, don't seem altogether new. Among them: Universal access to preschool. Expanded access to charter schools. Extended school days and school years.

Some cities, including Denver, have been striving to implement such initiatives. In November 2006, Denver voters approved a sales tax increase to expand preschool for all 4-year-olds in the city.

'Into a broom closet'

But the ideas are still controversial for some. Booker, an outspoken advocate for increased school choice, said he was taken "into a broom closet" by union leaders who threatened he would never get elected if he did not stop talking about expanding choice.

Colorado Senate President Peter Groff, D-Denver, recounted a similar conversation with union leaders upset about his education ideas. "I think I've been in that same room," Groff said.

But Booker and Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said they believe Sen. Barack Obama, who endured boos as well as support from the NEA during its convention, is willing to take a stand.

Others, such as Romer,urged Obama to convene, within 30 days if he's elected, a group of 15 states to pilot rigorous academic standards and assessments for the nation.

Romer, former superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, wants all 50 states to adopt common standards.

But, "I'm a pragmatic politician," he said. "The nation isn't ready for that."

Not my America

Speaker after speaker at Sunday's lengthy news conference and ensuing roundtables on education cited dismal statistics about U.S. schools.

In Denver, for example, Superintendent Michael Bennet said only 9 percent of today's ninth-graders will graduate from a four-year college. For Hispanic and black students, the numbers are worse. The average black 12th-grader reads at about the proficiency level of an average white eighth-grader on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

"This is not the America of which I dream," Booker said. "This is not the America of which our children speak when they pledge allegiance to the flag."

mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5245

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