A chance to reform education reform

Last week, Gov. Terry Branstad and his crew put the brakes on a proposal to overhaul teacher pay.

That's big - and welcome - news.

Teacher pay was one of the first ideas Branstad floated back when he started talking comprehensive K-12 reform, and it's been the strongest thread running through his ambitious agenda ever since.

It was the tie that bound together this summer's education summit; the big red bow around his “One Unshakable Vision” education blueprint - minted just last month with the warning that it wasn't to be taken as ”a list of options to be cherry-picked based on special interests, ideology, political affiliation,” but a “set of changes designed to work together to create an ‘all-systems go' approach.”

But now that “all-systems go” has been downgraded to vague promises of pilot programs and task forces (at least where pay reform is concerned), there's a larger lesson to be learned - one that Branstad should have known in the first place.

Iowans should have been on the ground floor of reform discussions, not as spectators but as experts.

That's not just because Iowans are too nosy and skeptical, too engaged and informed not to want to weigh in on something as monumental as statewide school reform. It's because we know what we're talking about.

The first place to look for ideas about how to take schools from good to great are the very halls and classrooms where they're learning now. But because the governor put off listening, he lost the thread.

“We're not backing off of the concept,” Linda Fandel, Branstad's special assistant on education policy, told reporters. “We did need more time.”

Time they wasted sheltering the details of their plan, then trying to sell it at the eleventh hour like some shady circus barker.

If Branstad reps such as education chief and merit-pay expert Jason Glass had addressed concerns early and answered questions honestly, they might have found fixes for the flaws in their pay plan. It's too late for that.

There's no way to spin it otherwise - deferring pay reform marks a big retreat for the governor. A belated acknowledgment he can't sell a plan cooked up in some backroom - without the insight and input from experts on the ground.

Let's hope this setback brings about an even more significant shift in the governor's approach - a shift toward a statewide discussion, rather than a “trust me” lecture, about how we can better teach our kids.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net