What’s the real goal of new Missouri education committee: school reform or confusion? | Opinion
Education reform at the state level can encompass many objectives, including improving outcomes, enhancing teaching methods, addressing inequality, promoting accountability and reducing bureaucracy. One could argue that every legislative bill routed through any education committee would attempt to address a reformation of some kind.
However, the word “reform” often gets exchanged with the word “choice,” and even “choice” in the education space seems to refer to allowing parents and students to choose from different types of schools: traditional public, public charter and private.
Like the word “reform,” choice too has multiple contexts. Choice can take the form of personalized learning, vocational learning and project-based learning. Reform is good, and choice is good. Because one-size-fits-all works for only one size. Lately, I have been wondering what education reform really means.
Earlier this month, the Missouri House announced the formation of a new committee — the House Special Committee on Education Reform. As soon as the news hit the hallways of the Capitol, questions came flying about this new committee’s purpose. My politically conditioned brain retorted, “It’s a place to send the controversial ‘choice’ bills like charter school expansion and vouchers so the regular education committee can focus on the ideas that unite us.”
So far, this new education reform committee has heard two bills: one to tweak new provisions passed last year regarding the state’s virtual school accountability system (not controversial) and one to cap superintendent salaries (controversial). Two bills to expand charter schools are on the docket for this week.
Usually, the state House speaker directs these bills to the Standing Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education so members can vet them through the lens of all other pending education legislation. If the goal is to bury or fast-track thorny education policy in a fresh new committee, while the regular education committee focuses on teacher salaries, early childhood education and open enrollment, I get the point. But to slap on the education reform label without explaining the meaning of reform seems ambiguous.
Increasing baseline teacher salaries to attract and retain talent is reforming the compensation system. Making quality pre-K available to every student from low-income families is reforming our early childhood education delivery. Providing a mechanism where a district can accept a small percentage of nonresident students who want to transfer to better serve their needs is reforming the arbitrary boundaries that force children to attend public schools based on residency.
Reforming education is more than purely focusing on inputs and outputs. It’s about improving education to serve students better. Forming a new committee and not providing the reasoning or context to the public only creates confusion, and further drives a wedge between policymakers working together to strengthen our schools.
Linda Rallo is vice president of Aligned , nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit coalition of business leaders committed to improving education in Kansas and Missouri.
