20th Anniversary Education Reform: Before It Was Cool

Two decades ago, Education Reform was not cool. If you weren’t about reducing class size and advocating for more money, you were nobody.

The media was gaga over the education Blob. They had dozens of alliances and confabs that seemed to be always “happening”. People waited to get a glimpse of the Blob going in and out of the White House, the Departments of Education, the New York Times building! It was a big fat party, that education Blob, and some of us were fighting to get past the bouncers so we can shake up that party.

It shouldn’t have been that way. After all, the nation was issued a wake-up call in 1983. The research showed that even our best students had an education that was mediocre at best. For poor children, we were simply failing. A Nation at Risk forewarned that if our leaders failed to address education’s rising tide of mediocrity, the world’s economic and social outlook was bleak.

Hundreds of “in-system” efforts ensued after the public outrage died down, to no avail. And then in 1990, a modern day Harriet Tubman pushed through a voucher bill in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Polly Williams became Tommy Thompson’s best friend on school choice. In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter school law, led by the Democrat Farm Labor party. In 1992, Bill Clinton appealed to centrists to embrace public school choice. In 1993, Michigan’s John Engler challenged his state’s establishment and enacted a far-reaching charter school law with university authorizers at the helm. The floodgates flew open, despite enormous union opposition that targeted supporters at every level. They were a paper tiger.

The Republican governors took reform on with gusto and began a decade of strong charter laws, rigorous standards, high stakes testing and even vouchers. Democrat legislators joined them. Companies joined the movement to manage schools, organic parent groups took on the establishment and started schools, and by 2000 the education reform movement was in full adolescence and booming. It became cool to be a reformer, and soon those rope lines in all the hot places were filled with people who knew that talking money and class size was passé. Choice and accountability were here to stay. And the unions were so much on the defensive they started writing “secret” PR plans to get back into the “in-crowd.”

Lots of new people joined the reform party, but they didn’t know the history, the struggles, the reality of the opposition. They were cool, and that was enough. For a while. Reform efforts began sliding, meeting growing resistance from the Blob. But rather than fight them, as their predecessors did, many modern day reformers started talking about collaboration… again. Talk about in-system reform, getting along with unions, “measured” choice and regulated chartering have stymied the rapid growth of new laws that guided the early reformers. Being cool now means getting along… again. Go figure.

The best intentions and most high level coalitions won’t deliver American kids from less than 40 percent proficiency in the basics, restore rigor to their schools or ensure college and career readiness. Only hard, smart decisions and substantive efforts will. As The Center for Education Reform turns 20 and looks back at the history it has had a bird’s eye view of seeing and carrying, we invite you to join us for an intensive conversation about at the original stories of reform, their founders, the lessons of the past, the battle lines, the missteps, and the victories. And help plan the next generation of reform efforts.

We’re 20 years in. Embrace the New cool.