Winter 2008

continued from p. 4

More important than money, however, we swiftly discovered how much we enjoyed each other’s company. For many Task Force members, these get-togethers have turned into both the most stimulating and the most affable of our professional relationships: lively, provocative exchanges among people who in this environment can let down their hair, joke a little, prod one another, constructively criticize each other’s work, agree and disagree but — again — within the framework of shared fundamental values about what needs to change in American primary-secondary education.

We realized early that, no matter where we came from by way of institutional base, discipline, or locale, we shared the conviction that U.S. schools need more accountability, transparency, and choice—the triple lens through which we have examined a host of specific problems and policy issues. Sure, we may attach different emphases to that trinity and define them in slightly different terms. To some of us, for example, “accountability” is mostly about sound academic standards and curricular content, while others push harder on the incentives and interventions tied to the results of tests aligned with those standards. But that’s part of what’s healthy about the task force structure and fruitful about its diversity, making for imaginative, multi-faceted solutions to problems and for subtle, multipart policies rather than simplistic or formulaic responses.

What’s more, we’ve been busy and prolific. Lively and enjoyable as our meetings are, the Koret Task Force is no mere discussion group. By late 2007, it could point to seven books addressing education issues of national significance; serious state-level policy reviews invited by the governors of Texas, Arkansas, and Florida; innumerable articles, scholarly papers, and op-eds as well as multiple media appearances; and an influential quarterly journal of its own, Education Next (captained by Task Force member and Harvard political scientist Paul Peterson), for which the Task Force serves as editorial board.

A proud track record, I believe. Which is not to say the sailing is always perfectly smooth. We argue a lot. Once or twice, there have even been raised voices. We often have disparate views as to what issue needs tackling next. Reaching group consensus on specific policy recommendations has occasionally revealed cracks in our wall. And we’ve chafed under the inherent limits of the “collection of separately authored essays” format that has been our most common published product. Indeed, that concern has led to a midcourse correction: our next half-dozen or so publications will be shorter monographs, each by one or two Task Force members. We expect these works to prove more accessible, perhaps more coherent, and maybe harder-hitting as well.

There’s no dearth of topics in need of attention. It’s been said that education reform is lifetime employment. From teacher pay to No Child Left Behind, from reading instruction to school leadership, from curriculum content to workable charter-school and voucher policies, from school-finance puzzles to the opportunities afforded by cutting-edge technology, from preschool to community college—there’s plenty on our plate and plenty needing to be done. Task Force members will continue, as before, to do much of this via their “day jobs.” But the Koret Task Force has, and will continue to have, both a powerful stimulus effect on its members in their individual work and a “more than the sum of its parts” effect on the national debate about education and how to make it meet the needs and challenges of 21st-century America.