... Roy Romer, former Colorado governor and LA schools superintendent. Romer lately has been working with Ed in '08 to make education issues a priority in the presidential campaign. He spoke with reporter Ron Matus while attending an education conference in Orlando.
Obviously you've spent a lot of time on this campaign, getting the message out that education is important. But it still isn't on the front burner as an issue. Why isn't it getting more traction?
We have made some gains but it's not on the front burner. You're absolutely right. The issues on the front burner are the war, the economy, health care, global warming and energy. Education, if you do exit polls, it's not one of the issues. So we have made progress because candidates now are discussing it more than they did before, but not yet enough.
Now let's go to the question of why? Couple reasons. One, there is a general malaise in America that we're doing better than we think. They think we're doing better than we are. In Iowa, when I went there, I spoke to the Rotary Club in Des Moines, and I would remind them that they rate their eighth graders as 65 percent proficient. Then I'd remind them that NAEP, the national test, would rate their eighth graders at 35 percent proficient. And I would remind them that if they compared them to Singapore, they're 25 percent proficient. But they think they're doing okay in their local suburban school. The urban schools, they know they're in trouble.
So, one, the general public just doesn't have an awareness of how far we're falling behind and how far their child is behind compared to other eighth graders in the world.
The second issue is, it's not comfortable for candidates for federal offices to come to town and talk about I'm going to fix education because of state's rights. They fear that they're encroaching upon a territory that states and local governments have primary responsibility for. And it is a shared responsibility, frankly. I don't want them to federalize education. But I just notice that candidates are hesitant. They'll talk about Medicare because we legislate on that area. They'll talk about global warming and all that. But on education, they are hesitant because they don't know how to engage that conversation and to implement what it is they're talking about. And we've got to work on that.
They could at least talk about things like No Child. They're not even doing that.
I understand what you're saying. And when you push me as to why, so far in campaigns people often turn to sound bites. And in education the sound bite that's worked the best, that gets the most applause, is anti-test. You follow? Anti-test. So anti-test, No Child forces us to do more tests. It's shallow thinking. Shallow. I used to train people to fly airplanes. We had to have tests to see whether you were safe. You'd train a person on navigation, then you'd give them a test. And God, if they can't navigate the plane, they're going to kill people, know what I mean? Tests are important to verify whether you've learned what it is that you are supposed to learn.
So how do you turn this around? How do you get more people thinking about education.
Pinellas’ national search for a new superintendent continues to attract candidates with serious baggage.
