Just a glance at the websites for the White House and the Department of Education tell you big changes are emerging.  The sites affirm that students learn when teachers are retained-not laid off; that the day is long, the work is hard, and mentoring helps; that planning time can’t be ignored if reform is the goal.

As you’ve heard in the news, the sites declare the intention to improve early childhood education, high school graduation rates, student loans to help college attendance.  Sounds like the new administration is addressing the problems being flogged by various education blocs over the last eight years since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was authorized.

The biggest change is the amount of funding for programs mandated by NCLB, a highlight of the federal stimulus package (February 2009) as well as the federal budget legislation (March 2009).

Interesting that governors on behalf of state school boards, if they want the funds, must agree to assure certain provisions: improve the quality of standardized tests and raise standards; enforce the requirement that the most highly qualified teachers are assigned equably among all students, rich and poor.

If Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, and Barack Obama have been listening, why are so many in the education field upset?

The devil is in the details.

Some like Diane Ravitch in a mid-April post on the blog Bridging Differences, part of Education Week’s online magazine, say the administration is not doing enough to change NCLB faults (and there are many).   Dorothy Meier in the same blog says that there is national denial about the problem among voters as well as state governments.  The mantra is teachers are incompetent, unions are only thinking about pay, parents don’t care, public school districts waste money and so on.

On the other hand, Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers (AFT), in an article in the New York Times (April 15, 2009) is quoted as saying “They’re trying to do reform with teachers, not to them.”

In California, however, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) demonstrated at a school board meeting mid-April 2009, after 6000 teachers had been sent preliminary layoff warnings (pink slips).  The board members wanted to split the stimulus money over two years.  Only lay off 3000 school personnel next year?  How does that make sense?

And, on the NBC Nightly News, May 5, 2009, a short news clip outlined the problem with dividing up education stimulus funds among states based on existing government demographic formulas so that, for instance, Utah, which needs substantial additional funds, gets far less than Wyoming, which has a huge education budget already and spends much more ‘per pupil.’

It seems “how” changes are going to be designed and implemented bedevils the mind.

What have you heard in your state?