The largest union’s meeting opened here on Saturday to a drumbeat of heated rhetoric, with several speakers calling for Mr. Duncan’s resignation, hooting delegates voting for a resolution criticizing federal programs for “undermining public education,” and the union’s president summing up 18 months of Obama education policies by saying, “This is not the change I hoped for.”
“Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced,” Dennis Van Roekel, president of the union, the National Education Association, told thousands of members gathered at the convention center here.
More significant, Duncan has said that some of the billions in more traditional annual federal aid that has flowed to states according to population formulas should now be based on Racelike competitions aimed at various pieces of the reform agenda. “This is the chance of a lifetime,” Duncan says. “We have to move the country in a fundamental, dramatic way.”I was wrong -- on this, the President seems to be pursuing this as hard as he can. If there is one thing that he can change in this country for the better, and if there is one thing that will push me into being an Obama voter, it will be if he succeeds in forcing long-term public school reform in this country.
In a Congress controlled by Democrats, that could be a struggle. When Duncan’s testimony broached the broader idea at a March Congressional hearing, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, David Obey, a Democratic representative from Wisconsin — which finished 26th out of 41 entrants in the first round of the Race — reminded Duncan of the states’ dire need for basic funds and signaled his skepticism about the Race reforms, declaring, “When the sailboat is sinking, my top priority would not be to put a new coat of varnish on the deck.” (Obey recently announced he will retire next year, perhaps making Duncan’s reform path easier.)
“Every Democrat knows the president really cares about this,” Schnur says. Which suggests that the Nixon-to-China dynamic that prevailed in states like Tennessee may work in Washington. Obama could most likely get some, probably many, Democratic votes, while winning support from Republicans on an issue they have championed so strongly in the past that taking a flat-out anti-Obama approach would be especially awkward.
“That President Obama did this is a total game changer,” says Pastorek, the Louisiana schools superintendent, who is a Republican working for a Republican governor, Bobby Jindal. “If he really sticks to this, education will never be the same.”
"NORRIS: The United States is a nation that gets things done. It's a can-do nation. That can-do attitude is an important part of the national psyche. But this so far is a problem that the government can't fix, at least not anytime soon. Help us understand why this should not shake the faith of people in their government?Let's ignore that Jackson doesn't even begin to answer an interesting (if off topic) question. Rather, I'm really frustrated with Jackson's near-rote repeating of the day's talking points: Barack Obama really, REALLY cares and isn't going to leave you or forsake you.
Ms. JACKSON: The most important thing here is to realize the president's personal commitment. He said again today that, you know, we are here and we're not going anywhere. That we realize that even if and when the flow of oil is finally stopped, this recovery, this response and recovery is going to be a long-term thing and requires a long-term commitment. He said that over and over.
I do think that, you know, just in terms of the psyche of this region being from here, part of the anger that is so palpable - and I have it myself - is that that frustration of watching something this catastrophic that we cannot - none of us can do anything about."
"I kept hearing that we had lots of projects that were shovel-ready," says one administration official. "But they weren't. We have think tanks that make a compelling case for Keynesian stimulus. What we need, it turns out, is a think tank that tells us how to actually do a stimulus -- how we can get the dollars out there now" to reduce unemployment. [snip]Jim here again. Recrimination first: the Obama administration's original sin will be the stimulus package, which was neither fish nor fowl. If they wanted to do Keynesian stimulus, it should have been MUCH bigger (1.2T instead of 800B.) It was also sold with the phrases "shovel ready" and "timely, targeted and temporary." I think they painted themselves into a corner with those words.
The disparity in the speed at which different projects get going is evident in the state's own tally of jobs funded through the stimulus dollars. By the end of 2009, stimulus money had funded 50,138 jobs in education but just 1,656 in transportation. Totaling all infrastructure spending in the stimulus, $10.6 billion was slated to come to California, $5.6 billion had been awarded, and just $1.2 billion spent by the end of last year.
What happened? Big government -- spending, that is -- ran into good government -- regulation, competitive bidding, environmental safeguards, the works. [snip]
"Environmental-impact reviews, historic-preservation safeguards, unionization of government workers -- these are good things, but they've changed the way government can operate. Plus which, the federal government said, 'We'll give you a ton of money, and we want you to spend it faster -- and better.' There are no exemptions from regulations that came with the stimulus funds. They didn't waive the requirement for competitive bidding; they stressed competitive bidding."
She continues, "You can't just build a new bridge. You've got to do environmental-impact reports, you have to open up the decision to community input, you face potential lawsuits. I'm not saying concern for environmental impacts should go away, but it makes it harder to deal with an economic crisis."
