Education
Public Education and Our Economy
Throughout our history, public schools have empowered America to fulfill its promise to the next generation. Yet today our public schools are falling short. More than 1.2 million children drop out of high school every year. We rank 20th among industrialized nations for high school graduation rates. Forty years ago we were first. Seventy percent of our 8th graders can't read at grade level.
Our public schools are not only failing our children, they are failing our economy. We need a public school system that creates business leaders and highly skilled workers to propel us forward in the global economy. Our country's competitiveness and our ability to pull ourselves out of this economic crisis depend on fundamental transformation of the public education in this country.
Part of this transformation will be ensuring that any student who wants to go to college will never be prevented from doing so because they can’t afford it. To learn more about what we’ve done to make higher education more affordable, click here.
Now is the time to re-imagine our schools as magnets for talent, centers for communities, and incubators of innovation.
If we think big about education, we can start to imagine school buildings as prototypes for energy efficiency, and classrooms as job training centers for the new energy economy -- preparing parents and students alike. School-based health care can advance from one nurse stretched between multiple schools to clinics that are leaders in efficient health care. School lunches can progress from packaged feedings in the cafeteria to lived lessons on nutrition and wellness. Our schools can become what they should be -- institutions preparing children to lead in the 21st Century.
Magnets for Attracting Talent
Nothing makes a greater difference in the life of a student than a great teacher. As President Obama said, "In a global economy where the greatest job qualification isn't what you can do but what you know, our teachers are the key to our nation's success."
Supporting Effective Teachers
Teaching, especially teaching in high-need schools, is the hardest job there is. Our current system is not doing a good job of supporting the people doing the hard work of teaching our kids. We need to invest in a comprehensive system for developing, supporting, and retaining our teachers. This means:
- Investing in proven training that equips teachers with the content knowledge and classroom management skills to be successful in helping their students.
- Ensuring ongoing, quality professional development that results in increased student achievement.
- Developing fair evaluation systems for teachers and principals that provide useful information to help them improve their practice.
- Restructuring the way we pay teachers to reward their success and provide incentives for them to stay in the profession.
- Creating career ladders and high-quality mentoring programs.
Recruiting New Teachers
Year after year after year we face chronic shortages in high-needs areas like math, science, special ed and English-language acquisition. We need to attract the most talented people to the classroom. We can start by:
- Establishing a corps of highly effective teachers to serve in schools where they are needed most.
- Expanding high-quality alternative pipelines and residency programs for teacher recruitment.
- Attracting talent from different sectors, ages and demographics.
- I introduced the Post 9-11 Troops to Teachers Enhancement Act with Senator McCain to expand the successful program to help our military men and women continue to serve their country in the classroom.
- Replicating effective training for new teachers and insist on rigorous standards.
- Increasing salaries and provide incentives for teachers to go into the schools where they are needed most.
Training and Supporting Effective Leaders
Without strong leadership, we will not have strong schools. We need to make smart investments into training and support school leaders, especially to transform our lowest-performing schools to:
- Provide high quality training for principals
- I was an original Cosponsor of the School Principal Recruitment and Training Act
- Create high-quality professional development opportunities for experienced principals to lead successful turnarounds of the lowest-performing schools
- I sponsored the Lead Act to create School Leadership Centers of Excellence to support principals in turnaround schools
Centers for Communities
Our schools are uniquely positioned to bring together communities and meet the needs of families, such as by:
- Starting learning earlier, being broader in scope, and engaging entire communities.
- Transforming schools to centers where communities gather for skills and services.
- Utilizing schools' unique ability to deliver health and support services.
- I introduced the Healthy Schools Act, that was included in health reform and puts a more streamlined procedure in place for school-based health centers to be properly reimbursed by the federal government.
- Integrating nutrition and physical health in schools.
- I sponsored the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act to make sure all foods available to kids while they are at school are nutritious.
- I sponsored the Hunger Free Schools Act to reduce the paperwork and bureaucracy to make sure hungry children receive the school meals they deserve.
Incubators for Innovation
We know that in order to improve our system, states and districts will have to take bold new approaches to delivering a quality education. A critical role of the federal government can be to provide opportunities innovation, and high-quality research and development to replicate effective strategies, and:
- Encourage states and districts to try new approaches to that drive results
- I was an original cosponsor of the Secondary School Innovation Fund Act, a bill to award grants to implement innovative strategies to improve student achievement and prepare at-risk students for postsecondary workforce-driven education.
- Empower schools to reach the cutting edge of using new technology for teaching and learning.
- Using technology to disseminate effective practices, share great lesson plans, and connect students to one another.
Drivers of Success
In order to compete in the global economy, our schools have to graduate students ready to excel in college or career. No Child Left Behind resulted in a race to the bottom, with states adopting low standards. We need to ensure that our standards are high, and are preparing our students to excel in college and beyond, so as to:
- Update standards to reflect 21st century skills, work with businesses and universities to develop college and career ready standards.
- Invite states to embrace the state led common standards.
- Give tests requiring students to think and produce, not just be good at test taking.
- Spend less time testing and more time teaching.
We must do better, we can do better, and in Denver we made progress. From 2005 to 2008, Denver kids improved in reading, math, writing and science.
- We closed failing schools and opened new ones.
- We implemented a groundbreaking teacher pay system that rewards teachers who improve their students' performance and provides incentives for teachers to go the neediest schools. We accomplished this change by working with the union.
- With the leadership of our Mayor and city council, voters expanded early childhood education. As a result, this year there are 1500 more 4 year olds in full day programs, a 300% increase. For the first time, more than 90% of our 5 year olds get a full day of school. Research shows there is no smarter investment.
- In 2008, we launched a School Performance Framework that measures student progress year to year throughout their career- rather than the meaningless measurement of one year's class against the next year's class.
Denver has made progress and there is still much work to do to change the odds for all of our students. Other districts will see similar success if we support proven reform efforts.
Our job in the Senate should be to partner with the Administration to spur innovation and identify and expand what works. I am working with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, my colleagues, parents, teachers, students and the community to support innovative solutions.
We won't fix schools by spending more money on the same inadequate programs. But we must commit to funding what works. And we now have the largest investment in public education in history with which to do it. The stimulus and the budget are working in tandem to increase access to early childhood education. States and localities can use these resources to build on efforts to revamp standards and turn around failing schools, reduce high school dropout rates and increase college graduation rates.
We will know we have succeeded when we see not only more students graduating high school, but more of those graduates going on to complete college. The achievement gap will shrink, and the United States once again will lead in academic achievement.
Videos:
Bennet and Duncan Make Push for Transformational Change in our Public Schools
Bennet calls for Improvements to our Public Education System
Press Releases:
Bennet: Good Leadership Can Turn Around Our Failing Schools
In the News:
Sen. Michael Bennet: "We're Falling Behind the Rest of the World.''
Sen. Michael Bennet calls on Colo. to commit to education during Boulder visit
Bennet plans bill to replicate Denver principal training nationally
