Michael Tobman on the school choice sea change

Democrats in state legislatures throughout the country are supporting charter schools, education tax credits, special needs vouchers, scholarship tax credits and opportunity scholarships. Democratic candidates for offices at every level of government are being asked about and supporting all of the above. Democratic Party leaders are endorsing school choice bills and lending their offices to whip votes. Democrats who support school choice are winning legislative seats in districts with voter registrations that favor Republicans and they are trying to “out-school choice” one another in primaries for reliable Democratic seats. These are the facts on the ground as we look from coast to coast in the summer of 2008. The amazing thing is that this is all happening. The truly astounding thing is that it has taken so long to happen.

Democrats seem to have finally moved past blind adherence to the idea that winning is about cobbling together forced coalitions in advance of Election Day. Their rapid-response “war rooms” have evolved past simply refuting bad press. The permanent campaign finally has embraced the truth that winning elections depends on having winning ideas. Tired relationships that have long stopped being mutually beneficial are being cast aside in favor of ideas and policies that speak to constituencies that have eluded top-down communication and dictates. Newsletters with boring lists of endorsements are being replaced by idea-driven pieces authored by columnists in traditionally hostile newspapers. Democrats are finally taking on hard issues that require work and genuine discussion…

Democrats have again developed a pragmatic, results-oriented view of America that expects more of us all and elevates us in doing so.

Michelle Rhee’s five year plan for Washington, DC

The planning document makes broad promises about the school system’s future under Rhee. “The experience of DCPS stakeholders will be dramatically different in five years,” it says. The paper divides that period into three phases. The first 18-month segment, currently underway, calls for action to “aggressively transition out poor performers at all staff levels.”

The shakeup began in March with the dismissal of 98 central office employees and continued this spring with the firing of more than 40 principals and assistant principals. Personnel change continues as an objective in the salary plan Rhee has proposed to the Washington Teachers’ Union, in which instructors opting for big raises and bonuses must agree to go on probation for a year.

The second 18-month period, from 2009 to mid-2010, stresses the use of test data to guide classroom instruction. A major theme of third though fifth years is to overhaul special education and completion of a data system intended to give parents real-time information about how their children are faring.