With advertisements in the Washington Post and New York Times, a new coalition for education reform announced its entry onto the wonk scene yesterday, calling itself "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education." The group is spear-headed by the labor-liberal think tank the Economic Policy Institute.
Broader, Bolder's actual policy solutions amount to this: Pay teachers more and put the good ones in struggling schools. Hold all children to a college prep standards. Create universal early childhood education and invest in improving children's health. Provide low-income kids with extracurricular opportunities. In short, nothing new or even controversial.
And like most education reform plans, there is no discussion of the political strategizing and compromising that will be necessary to move beyond No Child Left Beyond, which the group rightfully calls inadequate. There is also no discussion of the racial and socioeconomic segregation within our public education system, a problem that research tells us is perhaps the single largest contributor to the achievement gap.
Sadly, Broader, Bolder is likely to have little more impact than ED in '08, another well-funded education reform group that hoped to make a splash during this election season, but hasn't yet found a way to peg itself to our current political moment -- or to create a real sense of urgency among the candidates or in Congress.
--Dana Goldstein
