But it contains the seeds of an issue that hasn’t received much attention.  How much of the teachers’ unions anger over this proposal is about the proposal itself and how much actually stems from simmering tensions on Central Falls, health care, and card check and is really about a larger set of politics?

Also in Time,  here’s Bloomberg and Klein on the proposal.

The administration’s proposal, if enacted into law, would encourage states to raise academic standards after a period of dumbing-down, end the identification of tens of thousands of reasonably managed schools as failing, refocus energies on turning around the few thousand schools that are in the worst shape and help states develop more effective ways of evaluating the work of teachers and principals. And those are just some of its goals.

A little over the top, yes, but he’s been patient.  Still, it does raise two important issues.

First, is our goal “reasonably managed schools” or, you know, ones where students are learning?  For a long time The Times thought the former, generally viewing schools through a more general social policy or welfare state prism rather than as a distinct policy issue where outcomes matter.  Let’s hope that’s not coming back.  And, the sentiment raises the question of how much accountability remains for underserved kids in the vast swath of schools in the middle is an enormous outstanding question in this reauthorization.

Second, even the Fordham Foundation after a exhaustive search couldn’t find evidence of a dumbing down race to the bottom.  The best they could come up with was a “walk to the middle.” I’m all for college and career ready standards but it’s essential that we not lose sight of (a) how much variation there was in standards prior to No Child Left Behind and (b) to the extent there is dumbing down it’s generally the result of state-level political pressure that favors looking good over doing well.   There is no inherent pressure to do that.   The effectiveness of the new ESEA law will hinge on how the policy accounts for those issues.

Dillon’s next day story on how much the unions hate it is important reading. A lot riding on that.

Well, the UFT charter came up for renewal and there is something for everyone.   As close observers know the school had some struggles and still does and as a result the authorizer gave it what amounts to a conditional renewal (pdf). In other words a mixed verdict because of performance and operations issues.  Jim Merriman, who also supported the schools at the time, and in fact originally authorized it, has more in a must-read blog post.

Like the Stanford charter school this shows that running great schools in challenging environments is brutally hard work.  In both that case and with the UFT school observers assumed, wrongly it turns out, that the schools would be outstanding given all the resources at their disposal.  But what’s really discouraging is how little desire there is to learn from schools that are succeeding in these places.   In both cases there are schools that are hitting the leather off the ball nearby.  And in both cases those schools a more commonly attacked than learned from.  The UFT frequently leads the attacks these days.

And before the usual suspects scream that “skimming” is the cause for performance variations, it turns out the UFT charter enrolls fewer free-lunch students, English-language learners, and special education students than surrounding schools.   I don’t think that’s because the UFT school is skimming, either, but I assume union will now stop irresponsibly making that claim against other charter schools.

First, the document is largely aspirational.   It’s hard to argue with the priorities but the action is in the details.   You’d think that at some point the administration would get wise to the problems of leaving the details of major policy priorities to the Congress.   Given the suburban composition of the House there is a real risk that this ends up being a piece of legislation that lets suburban districts off the hook for educating under-served kids.    Chris Edley gives voice to some of that in The Times write-up of this.  It’s fine to focus intensive intervention efforts on the most seriously dysfunctional schools but the data clearly show that serious and life-constraining achievement gaps exist in all kinds of communities.

On the other hand, assuming they have some assurances from leaders in Congress, this may be a smart strategy since if the goal is to maintain accountability there will be fewer changes than you might think.  The document implicitly recognizes the reality that much of the No Child policy was misconstrued in the public debate and/or poorly implemented by states and school districts.  For instance the blueprint makes the point that new accountability systems will reward success as well as point out failure.  Well, the old law specified that states should do exactly that for Title I schools.   Few did in a meaningful way.  Likewise, the idea of customized interventions in low-performing schools is not new, the current law specifies that.  Hence, despite the rhetoric, you can’t find examples of schools being completely restructured because one subgroup of students lags behind.  In fact, when states were even encouraged to come up with even more customized approaches as part of a pilot program that Secretary Spellings offered they came up pretty lame.

But this raises the second problem:  The plan relies on state capacity and will and arguably over-relies on it.   The track record there is not good and that may prove to be an enormous implementation hurdle for this plan.  Ambitions for the states outstrip what they can do right now or what they want to do.  In fact, a close reading of the Race to the Top applications shows that while you’ve got a few outliers on the high side (less than 16, one can only assume that cut off for finalists was a substantial natural break in the scores) most states were pretty unimpressive even when presented with that opportunity.  And the kind of accountability systems the administration envisions are a long way from reality right now in most states, how will that problem be bridged without creating a (much wanted by many interest groups) hiatus from today’s pressure for school improvement.  Finally, absent federal pressure, what evidence is there that all (or even most) states will remain ambitious on accountability, especially for under-served populations?

Third, on the politics, how is this not 2007 all over again?  The teachers unions hate it, the Republicans on the Hill seem to be lying in wait, and so you again have an enthusiastic secretary and a seasoned reform leader in George Miller trying to draw to an inside straight.  So that’s your third problem here, what’s the political strategy?  The glimmer of hope seems to be some desire for bipartisanship after health care.  But now it seems that almost however things go this week the environment will poisonous on the other side.  And given the context of this election year, what is the incentive for Republicans to hand Democrats a win on a top priority?

Finally, also on the politics, so far the political detractors of common standards are having trouble getting traction because it’s hard to paint an initiative with a lot of Republican governors on board as a big federal power grab.   But common standards are a linchpin on this proposal (assuming it is supposed to happen with any rigor) so does that threaten to drag that effort into the partisan back and forth?  It’s not as though the perception of Washington overreach isn’t a potent political issue right now…