Will the Candidates Answer Questions About Education Policy?

Watching my kids go through elementary school here in Iowa City, I’ve become more and more concerned about some of our district’s practices.  I was surprised, for example, by how little time the kids got to eat their lunches – a measly fifteen minutes, which often means even less if you’re at the end of the line.  In at least one school in our district, the kids had to eat lunch while bundled up in their snow pants and parkas, to save precious minutes on the transition to recess.  Recess time, too, has been cut back.

Meanwhile, the district has put a disproportionate emphasis on discipline and behavior management.  In the first half of last year at our school, for example, the school sent thirteen times as many disciplinary notes home as it did the previous year, even though the principal admitted that the kids were no worse behaved.  And our district now uses a behavior management program that, rather than get the kids thinking for themselves about right and wrong and developing their own consciences, relies heavily on material rewards to induce a kind of unthinking, reflexive compliance with school rules.  It sometimes seems like the district is trying its hardest to teach the kids that quietness and obedience are the highest values.

I know that not everyone agrees with me about these issues, but I thought it was important to discuss them publicly, so I started blogging about them and asking local school officials about them.  I found that local school personnel often attributed these practices to decisions made at the state and federal level.  Our superintendent, for example, explained that the state has put a lot of pressure on school districts to raise standardized test scores and to cover increasing amounts of subject matter.  The district, in turn, has tried to maximize “instructional minutes,” which makes it hard to find much time for lunch and recess in the schedule.

I don’t agree with those decisions – there’s every reason to think that kids will learn better, and have fewer behavior problems, if they get more time for recess and physical activity, and if they have time to eat a healthy lunch.  But there’s no question that the state has pressured the districts in the way the superintendent described.  To get federal funding under the No Child Left Behind Act, the state enacted a system of high-stakes testing.  Under state law, if a school doesn’t meet test score benchmarks, its teachers and administrators can ultimately be fired, and the school can be closed.  But if it pursues that goal by cutting recess and lunch to the bare minimum, and by adopting behavior management programs that teach authoritarian values, nothing bad will happen to it.

So, a month ago, I emailed all of the current candidates for our state legislature a handful of questions (see below) aimed at exploring the role of the state in what happens in our public schools.  I then set up a website to post the responses.

So far, I have been disappointed in the response.  Of two-hundred and twenty-seven candidates, only ten have responded on the record.  (Click here to see the responses.)  One legislator, in declining to answer, explained:

[O]ur candidates have been encouraged not to respond to these types of surveys.  There are many reasons for this.  Candidates often have comments taken out of context or they are used against them in campaign ads.  People are often wary of these types of requests because the issues are complex and often take a great deal of time and thought to answer.

I don’t see how our democratic system can work if people can’t get straight, on-the-record answers from legislative candidates to questions about policy.  I'm afraid that, for all the constant talk about “accountability,” education policy has become increasingly removed from any kind of real democratic control.  If legislative candidates won’t tell us where they stand on policy issues, how can the voters collectively determine the direction of our public institutions?  And if the public isn’t deciding what kind of public school system we have, who is?

If you’re reading this, I hope you’ll ask your candidates your own questions about where they stand on educational policy issues.  My questions are:

1. Opting out of testing. Many parents are concerned that important educational values are being sacrificed because of the use of high-stakes standardized testing to evaluate kids, schools, and educators. Would you support legislation to permit parents to opt their children out of such testing without repercussions?

2. Cuts in lunch and recess. In our district, the time devoted to recess has been reduced, and the elementary school students get only fifteen minutes or less to eat lunch. District officials attribute those changes directly to state pressure to teach more material and maximize “instructional minutes.” (See posts here and here.) What, if anything, should the state do to remedy the situation?

3. Local control. Because of state and federal regulation, individual communities now have relatively little control over the educational policies that govern their schools, and many parents feel that they have little to no say over what goes on in their kids’ schools. Do you think that local school districts should have more control over educational policy? If so, in what specific ways?

4. More school? Should state law require all kids to spend more time in school – either by lengthening the school day, extending the school year, or both? (See this post.)

5. PBIS. The state Department of Education wants to require all school districts to implement Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), a program that uses material rewards to train kids to reflexively obey school rules. (See posts here and here.) Do you support requiring all school districts to use PBIS?

6. Class size. Do you agree with our state Director of Education that we should tolerate larger class sizes in exchange for programs designed to “improve educator effectiveness”?

7. No Child Left Behind. Have No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top done more harm than good, or vice versa? Should Iowa opt out of No Child Left Behind, even if it means forgoing federal funds?