The pleasant surprise is the inclusion of vouchers. It makes sense to increase educational options by allowing access to private schools with public money but, historically, 'voucher' has been a dirty word in political circles as it rocks the union boats. Career politicians do not like to jeopardize reliable sources of campaign contributions.
Anyway, here's the list:
Our policy agenda outlines our immediate objectives and the reasoning behind them. It’s a big document, about 20 pages, so here’s an outline of our core priorities:
Priority One: Elevate the Teaching Profession by Valuing Teachers’ Impact on Students
StudentsFirst believes that all students can achieve at high levels when they have effective teachers. We will work to ensure every child is guaranteed that right. Excellent teachers and principals are the backbone of public education, they must be recognized as professionals with whom we entrust the awesome responsibility of developing our nation’s future.For this reason, we will work to ensure, among other things, that teachers are evaluated based on evidence of student results rather than arbitrary judgments; that principals are evaluated for their ability to attract, retain, manage, and develop great teachers; and that excellent teachers are paid substantially more for their vital work.
Part of this will involve separating teacher evaluation from collective bargaining in union contracts (given the inherent conflict of interest), and removing certain seniority-based policies, such as “First in, Last Out,” which require districts to terminate the most recent hires when layoffs are required. The bottom line is that we can make teaching a profession based on respect and performance, not tenure.
Priority Two: Empower parents with real choices and real information.
Parents naturally put the interests of their children above the interests of the system, so the more power parents have over their children’s education, the more our education system will be a students-first system.
We will work to create more high-quality, public-funded school choices by removing caps on the number of charter schools allowed, eliminating the barriers to replicating high-performing public charter schools, and supporting private-public scholarship programs for students without quality options.
Likewise, we will work to empower communities by giving them the power to reform failing schools; we will encourage open enrollment policies that allow families to choose better-suited schools outside their neighborhoods; and we will offer parents clear and useful data about their schools, such as whether their child’s teacher has a track record of helping students progress academically.
Priority Three: Spend Taxpayer Resources Wisely to Get Better Results for Students.
Over the past 40 years, per-pupil funding has more than doubled, but students have little to show for it. Student achievement has remained flat. This funding/achievement disconnect exists because in many cases states have spent money on some “feel good” things that have not been proven to increase student achievement, such as smaller classes or raising salaries based on advanced degrees instead of effectiveness. They also spend a lot on infrastructure, technology and facilities that could be streamlined and redirected to proven areas that improve student progress.
StudentsFirst will advocate for aggressive reforms in critical structural, operational, and budgeting activities throughout the country. We will work to eliminate laws that hamper superintendents’ and principals’ abilities to optimize their resources, help curb ineffective spending on the state level, and end bureaucratic policies that force district leaders to choose the cheapest food and facilities services, without regard to quality.
Well worth checking out the long version.
Go Michelle!
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