The Ripon Society recently hosted a breakfast discussion on education reform with Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.).
The legislators addressed the importance of education reform and its impact on economic growth.
“While education has many purposes, the larger picture is that better schools mean better jobs,” Alexander said. “Our goal as a party should be to double the size of our economy – so more people can share in the wealth, so we can improve the size of the middle class, and so we can improve the standard of living in a more competitive world.”
Alexander served as governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987 and worked to increase the income of families using education initiatives during that time. He also served as president of the University of Tennessee and as Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush.
“The combination of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and the use of waivers have created such congestion on education policy that Washington is, in effect, a national school board,” Alexander said. “And so, for example, while I think finding fair ways to reward outstanding teaching is absolutely crucial to our success, I’m not in favor of Washington telling Tennessee how to do it. We don’t need somebody up here requiring or defining or setting a few well-intentioned parameters.”
Deregulation of higher education is “one of the most important” things that needs to be done to reform education, and legislation was recently introduced that would do so, Alexander said.
Kline discussed the Student Success Act, a bill he authored that would “restore local control, support effective teachers and empower parents” while reducing the federal government’s role in education.
Kline recalled that a witness at a recent committee hearing brought a stack of three-ring binders.
“(The binders) weren’t the regulations,” Kline said. “Those were the indices to the regulations that schools have to go through. So simplifying that would be very helpful. That’s been a theme we’ve pushed regularly on the committee – get rid of duplicative programs, streamline, simplify, make it easier for students and administrators.”
Kline said he supported an initiative to measure teacher performance, but he agreed with Alexander that the federal government should not instruct states on how to do that.
Kline has been a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee since 2003 and has served as its chairman since 2011. During his tenure, Kline has advocated for greater local control in education, increased federal funding for students with special needs and reduced federal paperwork requirements for schools.