Ready for some good news out of Congress?

A few senators on both sides of the aisle spoke some sense about education in a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting, today, where Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appealed for an education budget increase. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) agreed in principle, saying, "It is wishful thinking to expect improvements in school quality when we are laying off teachers."

In the same meeting, Senators Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Jack Reed (D-RI) criticized competitive grant programs including Race to the Top (RTTT) and Promise Neighborhood (PN) grants. Shelby expressed concern that RTTT ensures inequitable funding and threatens states' rights by introducing a de facto requirement for states to support charter schools. Reed cautioned that funding should not be allocated to "untested" competitive grants, while being stripped from research-based programs.

The senators gently couched their concerns in party rhetoric, but my hope is that this is a sign of a larger political shift away from trying to apply competition-based business strategies to an education system that is supposed to provide equitable education to all. With increasing attention to the way this country educates its children, it seems more folks are starting to understand that the economic purpose of schools is not to turn a profit, but to ensure strong profits, over time, across all industries, by providing a skilled, knowledgeable, creative, and capable national workforce.

Links:

Reuters on the Senate Committee Meeting

HuffPo on the Senate Committee Meeting