Rewarding those who come up with innovative approaches, who prove that they have winning teams, who can show demonstrated success is a thematic within the Obama Administration. Of course, this is not 'abandon those who fail' and thus the more appropriate summary might be:
Give resources to good ideas, reward those who show success, and use those successes to help those who struggle reform toward success.
The Department of Education's Race to the Top can serve as a poster child for that approach (despite its real problems). That program, however, doesn't seem to incentivize what is likely the most cost-effective path for extensive and enduring improvements in our educational system: greening the schools.
Race to the Top is an admirable program concept and effort:
Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform. Race to the Top winners will help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow as they too are hard at work on reforms that can transform our schools for decades to come.
Let's help institutions develop solution paths and then figure out how to propagate those that work elsewhere.
Whether this is in figuring out the most effective paths for energy efficiency, transportation planning, prison reform, education, or elsewhere, this is a laudable path to follow.
Is something missing?
When it comes to "ambitious ... education reform", however, might the Department of Education be missing what might be the most cost-effective and fastest path toward improving American school performance?
Here is the program's stated focus:
Through Race to the Top, we are asking States to advance reforms around four specific areas:
- Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;
- Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
- Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
- Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.
[NOTE: There are real challenges in this ... a data driven approach which seems too reminiscent, in many ways, to NCLB ... see here for informative discussions and, of course, Teacherken and others at DKos.)
Where, if at all, does Greening the Schools fit into the equation?
It is hard to see where.
And Greening Schools should be on the top of the agenda.
A shorthand on greening schools.
A statement of truth:
Greening the Schools is the most cost-effective path toward improving educational performance ... while achieving many other worthwhile goals.
There are 1000s of pages of studies and lots of real world experiences that back this up. To start your way through them, start with my Greening the School House and then follow-up via the sources provided at the end of this diary.
In short, taking aggressive greening the school house is about one of the smartest steps the nation can take, action that should go beyond bipartisanship to true unity of action as it is a win-win-win-win strategy along so many paths:
- Save money for communities and taxpayers (saving resources for use on other paths to improve educational performance)
- Create employment
- Foster capacity for ‘greening’ the nation
- Reduce pollution loads
- Improve health (students, teachers, communities)
- Improve student performance / achievement
- And, well, other benefits.
Why improved educational performance?
People (whether workers or students or reading at home) perform better with more daylight and less artificial light. More efficient heating/cooling systems are, typically, quieter -- less distraction for the teachers/students. Reduced pollutants and better heating/cooling systems reduce illness -- lower student/teacher absenteeism leads to improved educational performance. Etc ... people perform better in more comfortable, healthier, safer environment. Last I heard, teachers and students were people.
A partial (NOT total) antidote for stress in the educational system?
Let's be clear, across America, our educational systems are under incredible stress. School budgets are being slashed, teachers (and other staff) are being fired off (excuse me, "laid off"), class sizes are swelling. The situation is dire. Many who are deeply concerned about our educational system see "greening the schools" as some form of luxury, not something for times of stress.
However ... Greening schools provides
- A path toward relieving that economic stress as energy/resource efficiency saves money -- freeing up resources to help keep teachers employed and class sizes down. (By the way, one of those savings; reduced substitute bills due to reduced teacher illnesses/absences.) (Hmmm ... another path toward helping improve educational performance due to the financial savings helping keep teachers employed?)
- A means to protect Administrative (support) staff, by employing threatened building maintenance/such staff in 'greening' retrofit/such projects.
Hold it, where can the resources come from to Green Schools? There is, after all, an upfront cost to this future savings and we're firing (oops, laying off) teachers right now due to budget crunches? The 'magic' of the situation comes from the basic fact that those savings are clear and can be calculated. Greening Schools is a perfect program for Federal, State, and Local bonds -- using just a portion of the savings to pay back the bonds. (It is not difficult, for example, to structure a greening program for a 6 year (12% per year) payback. A 20 year bond, based on current rates, would require under 6% per year in principal and interest payments. A community with a $25 million/year utility bill could easily use a $50 million bond, cut utility costs by $6+ million/year while spending $3 million/year to pay back the bond. So, how many 'sanitation engineers' could be kept employed with that bond money and how many teachers could remain with the students with $3+ million less going to utilities.) Greening Schools is an investment ... an investment that will pay off ... that is the sort of thing we borrow money to support.
Back to Race to the Top
This Administration has a substantial focus on the importance of a clean-energy future, along with the more general importance of fostering a stronger foundation across the board for a more resilient and prosperous society for the generations to come. Improving and strengthening the educational process -- at all levels, for all students -- is a substantive part of this. The Administration (Secretary of Education Duncan) would well serve the nation by recognizing how closely linked fostering that clean-energy economy can and should be with improving educational performance.
As The Race to the Top moves forward into future rounds of submissions and funding, the nation would be well served if at least one of the funded "states leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform" would have greening their schools as a centerpiece of their path forward. Is "Greening the Schools" the only path toward improving educational performance or should it be? Absolutely not. On the other hand, Greening the School House certainly should be part of a comprehensive, nation-wide effort to achieve that improved educational performance.
Related posts:
- Clean Energy Jobs Go to School: A $50 billion/year, 1 million job proposal for greening America's public schools.
- Greening the School House discussing legislation that passed the US House of Representatives in 2008, with a discussion of the range of benefits from greening schools.
- Keeping students awake ... and more productive discussing the implications of a LEED-certified high school. "energy savings are not even the tip of the iceberg in real benefits, in measurable impact from "going green". Study-after-study of green buildings has found that there is improved worker productivity, reduced absenteeism, and improved retention (reduced turnover) which directly impacts the bottom line (helping companies make green by going Green). In addition, related to these is that workers have fewer health problems — working in a healthy space turns out to, surprise surprise, contribute to one’s health."
Some green schools resources: