As chair of the Region I Superintendents in Richmond, Virginia, I am privileged to serve with several of my colleagues on the Board of Directors for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents(VASS). As a member of the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) my fellow superintendents and I have become increasingly more active in political advocacy for education and for all of the American children we serve in our great country. AASA has clearly led the effort to step up this level of advocacy at the national level of government.
The Executive Director of AASA, Dan Domenech, met with the VASS executive board and membership in Roanoke, Virginia this morning May 6, 2009. Dan is a well-rounded educator (formerly superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia) who clearly sees the “big picture” and is an outspoken leader committed to promoting the influence of AASA in educational decision making at the highest federal levels of government. I applaud Dan’s efforts to collaborate with the United States Department of Education and with the Obama administration in Washington, D.C., for embracing AASA.
For far too many years educators have been excluded in policy decisions at the highest levels of our government. The period of the past eight years have been very difficult for public education as critics of American schools appeared to have the upper hand in Washington, D.C., and the voices of the professional organizations representing education purposefully excluded from any substantive discussion (AASA, ASCD, NASSP, NAESP, NSBA, NEA, to name just a few). That day has past.
Dan Domenech reaffirmed this concept today in his remarks to the leadership of the Virginia Superintendents. Dan announced that AASA has a prominent place “at the table” since President Obama took office, and shared with us how this began to take shape during Obama’s transition to the presidency. Dan suggested that the shift in political power in Washington has opened a new era for educational policy in this nation. Most encouragingly, Dan confirmed that the Obama administration was actively listening and engaged with AASA as future educational policy decisions are being formulated in our capitol.
This is very god news for professional educators across America and a huge shift from the former administration. The federal government is increasingly moving forward to be a key player in educational decision making, an area that is relatively new in the history of this country. Absent any federal role as defined by our federal constitution, the power to establish and regulate educational policy has been left to the states. With a renewed interest in globalization and international standards, we can expect the federal government to step up its role in the formulation of standards for American education.
It is imperative that AASA and parallel organizations representing the educational community be present for these important policy discussions. Dan Domenech affirmed that President Obama’s administration is committed to pursuing the broad educational objectives defined during the political campaign in 2008 and is now in the process of engaging our professional organizations in conceptualizing a new direction for American education.
The challenges are formidable for all of us in education. While critics at the national level like to place blame on the educational system for a perceived failure to perform, what they lack is a thorough understanding of the dynamics of American education and all we are attempting to accomplish. International comparisons are valuable, as they continue to remind us that expectations must be raised and the stakes are extremely high in a global age of collaboration and cooperation. But international comparisons are not quite what they appear to be as many countries are clearly not as diverse as America nor committed to educating 100% of their children. This is particularly true in India and China, two countries we are constantly compared to.
In fact, many countries have homogeneous populations or implement tiered and exclusionary approach to moving students along an educational continuum, rendering statistical comparisons less than valid or reliable. So what does this mean? What is important for us to do in America is to strive for the best system of public education and promote what is in the best interest of all our children. Dan Domenech said it best today when he reminded us that we did not become the world power America is today with less than adequate public education. The real challenge for us is to articulate what works in American education and what we still need to do to improve the system for the enormous diversity that exists in the American school population.
Finally, the measures of success for educating a populace must not be limited to a snapshot or single standardized test (my own thoughts) but a true “motion picture” of how we are teaching young people to think, assess, analyze and act about the world they will occupy in future years. The correlation between poverty and academic achievement is so powerful that this is the single most important challenge for us in American culture at this moment. It will take strong educational leaders to mitigate the effects of socio-economic depravation on the children we serve, but we are up to this task. This is why educational “influence” is so important at the highest levels of American government now and in future years.
We as educators are capable of solving any of the challenges we embrace now and in the future, and these solutions will require an unprecedented amount of stakeholder input and discussion at every level of government. Reforms begin at home in local communities and are realized at the state and federal levels once we all speak from the same page and establish common understandings about what America’s schools are accomplishing and want to accomplish in future years. This is exactly what professional educators are trying to do at this moment to effect the necessary changes in policy and influence at all levels of government. I am proud of the unified voice AASA brings to state superintendents and proud of the work the Virginia superintendents have accomplished to articulate the need for progress and reforms in a new era of internationalization. Let’s be glad that President Obama is listening and committed to our efforts for the good of all our children.
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