Questions for Senators Obama and McCain

So, both the calendar and my jam-packed and very messy office tell me it’s August. In addition to the usual "It’s the beginning of the year how am I ever going to get all the stuff done that I need to get done before the students arrive?" panic attack, I had an additional panic attack. What if I bump into Senator Obama and I don’t have a good question ready?

Seriously, I’m worried about this. I live and work just south of Denver and, as you hopefully know, Denver is hosting this little thing called the Democratic National Convention coming up here at the end of August. While I know that conventions are pretty much completely scripted, Senator Obama doesn’t strike me as a man – or a candidate – who would spend the entire four days in his hotel/the Pepsi Center/Invesco Field at Mile High. So what if I’m at the grocery store and run into him, or what if he decides to visit my school? Hey, it could happen. George Bush (#41, not the current President) spoke at my school when he was Vice-President (before my time, but there are pictures to prove it – and we didn’t own Photoshop then), so I think it would be somewhat symbolic if Senator Obama stopped by.

I’m not very good at the "elevator pitch" - once a conversation gets going I think I get warmed up and can contribute, but put me on the spot for a serious and thoughtful question – not so much. So I’ve started trying to think of the one question I’d ask him if I did bump into him by the blueberries (or walking across our cafeteria).

I mean, there’s the obvious:

When are you going to name Chris Lehmann as your Secretary of Education designate?

Yes, I realize I already volunteered for this position, but sometimes you have to take one for the team.

Or there’s the standard:

Most educators think that NCLB has some serious flaws, and you seem to agree. What would you replace it with?

But then I’d just get the talking points.

Or I could reuse the question I didn’t get to ask Governor Richardson:

You have a statement in your plan about rigor, relevance and relationships. Too often in education I feel like rigor is defined as simply "harder" or "more homework." It seems like folks are saying that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, so let’s just require more of it. Instead, I think often what we should be asking is, "Are we doing the right things in the first place?" Can you talk a little bit more about how you define rigor and what are the key skills, abilities and habits of mind that our students need to be successful in the 21st century?

But I didn’t particularly like that question and it was directed specifically at a statement Governor Richardson had in his own plan.

You see, I’ve read the highlights of both Senator Obama and Senator McCain’s education stances, and looked more deeply at their web sites (Obama's Education Page, McCain's Education Page). And I’ve even listened to these three short NPR pieces on their personal tech literacy and how they would address technology in their administrations. (Apparently it’s a necessity to have a former FCC chair – from your own political party, of course - as a technology adviser. Hmm, if not Secretary of Education, perhaps I could be Senator Obama’s Technology Czar. I’ve never been a Czar.)

But I’d really like to ask that deep, meaningful, thoughtful question that gets to the heart of it all and allows us to really see his baseline, fundamental beliefs about education and what needs to change in order to meet the needs of our students. To help us understand if he thinks education is at a tipping point, and that it’s a different world out there, and schools need to adapt and change to meet it? Or if he believes that, while changes and improvements are always necessary, things are basically good as they are. And a question that gets beyond the usual talking points and helps explore all the ideas we’ve been talking about in our blogs for the last few years.

Now, I don’t mean to be partisan about this, I’d want to ask the same question of Senator McCain, but I just figure that’s it’s more likely I’ll run into Senator Obama here during the Democratic Convention than Senator McCain. (Although Arizona is just a long day’s drive southwest of here, perhaps he could come up for the day.) So, I said to myself, "Myself, you have a blog. Why don’t you ask for some help?" If you’re so inclined, please leave a thoughtful question in the comments for Senator Obama, Senator McCain, or both of them.

This is not a political blog, and I don’t want your "question" to really be a statement of political beliefs. So, if you comment, please honor this post in the spirit in which it's intended. I really want to know the one question you would ask either of these gentlemen that might help us better understand their beliefs on education. A question that hopefully gets away from the talking points and gives us a glimpse of the vision they have – or don’t have. This would help me out if I happen to run into either of them and, frankly, would help me out in case I find myself in an elevator with other important folks. (I’ve been having more of these "opportunities" than usual in the last few months, and have a few more coming up, it’s kind of weird - and I don't think "Hi, how are you?" is quite cutting it.)

Finally, if either Senator’s campaign staff stops by, I’d also like to formally offer to host a conversation between the two Senators regarding education. (Come on, staffers, Colorado may be the swing state, it's the perfect place to do this.) And I chose the word "conversation" very deliberately. I don’t really want to host a debate, at least not what passes for political debate these days – where each candidate takes whatever the question is and morphs it into the same old sound bites. I really would like to see both of these men have a thoughtful conversation about education. A conversation where, yes, we would indeed see the differences between them. But also a conversation where we could see the similarities, the common ground where we are most likely to be able to move forward together. A conversation where they were genuinely looking for solutions, not just trying to score points off one another. And, while I know this is terribly naïve of me, a conversation that perhaps actually generates some new ideas of how we can move forward together. Wouldn’t that be something?

(As a mostly irrelevant side note, I happened to mistype a URL on Senator Obama’s site while testing a link in this post and got the image below, embedded within the frame of his site. I gotta say, it seemed consistent with his campaign and made me smile a little. For the record, Senator McCain’s site gave me the standard 404 Page Cannot Be Found page, without the frame of his site around it.)

Bill Richardson 08 Education Question

I was contacted today by the Richardson campaign (that would be Bill, not Will, although I’d definitely sign up for Will’s campaign) and asked to participate in a conference call with Governor Bill Richardson today about his education plan. Well, okay, participate might not be the right word, as I never got to ask a question and it didn’t feel too much like a conversation. (Chris Lehmann was similarly frustrated, as we Skype-chatted during the call.) I know, probably awfully naïve of me to assume it would be any different, but sometimes you gotta have hope.

But then it occurred to me, “Hey, I have a blog!” I can still ask my question (see below). Or, better yet, maybe a bunch of us could ask some questions. So, faithful readers (I always wanted to keyboard that), the challenge has now been issued. Read through Governor Richardson’s speech about his plan (or read the PDF summary they emailed us when we were contacted about two hours before the call), and come up with a meaningful question. (Oh, you also only get an hour to work on it - that's when I got to the email - and have to be doing your regular job at the same time, just to be fair.) If you blog about it, consider tagging it with BR08EDQ (Bill Richardson 08 Education Question) so that they can find it, and leaving the URL in the comments to this post. I’m going to email the URL of this post to the “Director of Online Outreach” at the Richardson campaign to see if we can continue the conversation.

I had a hard time coming up with a question in that short amount of time (while doing other things – I know, excuses, excuses) that would work in this format (non-conversational), was directly related to his plan, and really got at some of the 21st century learning issues that we’ve been thinking about. So, I came up with one that sort of sideways came at it, but I didn’t like it that much.

Governor, you have a statement in your plan about rigor, relevance and relationships. Too often in education I feel like rigor is defined as simply “harder” or “more homework.” It seems like folks are saying that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, so let’s just require more of it. Instead, I think often what we should be asking is, “Are we doing the right things in the first place?” Can you talk a little bit more about how you define rigor and what are the key skills, abilities and habits of mind that our students need to be successful in the 21st century?

I was also ready with a brilliant closing after he answered my question. In the conference call he stated that he would name a “teacher as Secretary of Education.” So, my closing was going to be (if I didn’t chicken out),

Thank you, Governor. And I’d be happy to volunteer to be that teacher who’s your Secretary of Education.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Chris’s first question was about alternative assessment, but someone asked a very similar question (a real-live educator, although I didn’t catch his name – I think all the other questions were from reporters). So he scrambled and came up with this one (I helped a little bit with the end of the second sentence).

With the One Laptop Per Child mission, we are soon to see millions of students in the developing world use laptops in their learning every day. You want to see American education move into the 21st Century, what would you do to provide American students with the same opportunities for connectedness and collaboration?

I think I like Chris’s question better. Too bad he didn’t get to ask his either. Of course, I’m not sure either of our questions aren’t fairly easily talked around by an experienced politician. I’m not trying to be overly critical here, I can’t imagine what it’s like for these candidates, but I wish there was a better way to get straightforward, fairly specific answers to some of these questions.

I’m not sure how I feel about this experience. Should I feel flattered that they picked my blog and invited me? Should I feel frustrated that I didn’t get to ask my question? Should I demand to be Secretary of Education as compensation? OK, probably not that last one. But I do find it interesting that the campaigns are trying to reach out in some way to our network, even if they haven’t quite figured out the best way to do it. It will be interesting to see if (and how) they respond to my/our questions. Maybe we can start an Election ’08 Edublog Debate (trademark pending) . . .