We need to build on the momentum for change primed over the past year through federal efforts like Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants and through white-hot media attention on the need for education reform.

By their nature, those grants to states and school districts promoted collaboration between unions and management that required them to come together on a variety of issues, from student performance measures to teacher training to instructional models and assessment.

That’s a good start, but we need to do much more.

As the burden to ensure students have access to a quality education falls to local school districts, we should be thinking about change in three ways:

1. States need to be receptive to new ideas that will generate efficiencies and create innovative learning models. (See Tom Vander Ark’s e-learning suggestions below.) Sadly, most U.S. schools still operate on the industrial-era model, where knowledge is handed down in static classrooms. But as Vander Ark and others note, digital learning transcends state boundaries and engages students by focusing on their needs. Tomorrow's students will learn through hands-on experiences in real-life situations, and they will play a more active role in constructing their education careers. Local districts must realize and prepare for this change.

2. The federal government needs to give states the flexibility to apply innovative solutions to education problems. The Indiana State Board of Education, in an extraordinary move, granted blanket waivers in a variety of areas allowing school corporations to cut through red tape and implement “network model schools.” This paved the way for the development of innovative education models like New Tech Network high schools and others. Today, Indiana’s public-private approach to education innovation and economic development is cutting-edge.

3. Foundations and other grassroots organizations must work together in local communities to ensure students have access to a high-quality education. Today’s austere education climate is fertile ground for non-profits who share common goals of ensuring a quality education for all students. This includes strategies noted by Karen Miles’ strong Syracuse model noted below and others, including KnowledgeWorks’ Strive Together subsidiary that coordinates the efforts of civic organizations, businesses, social-service agencies, and others to drive better results in education.

Last month, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan redefined the current education environment as a “new normal” in which we must do more with less. Rarely has there been a better time to change the way learning is delivered.

These principles center on collaboration and support between school boards, administrators, and teachers representatives at the local level. If a local district decides to create an incentive plan as part of its school improvement efforts, such a plan should be in line with the district’s mission and strategic plan, and should be integrated into other components including evaluations and training.

Additionally, local school leaders must take this a step further, by rethinking collective bargaining to focus on the most important priority —increasing student achievement. There are examples of school districts and unions — Philadelphia, New Haven, and Maryland’s Montgomery County to name a few — that have created contracts that benefit students. It takes guts and sometimes is unpopular, but it can be done.

We know that strong local school boards, working collaboratively with their management teams, can bring change, but it requires a relentless focus on student learning and narrowing the achievement gap, bolstered by clear goals known and implemented throughout the district’s schools.

Kevin Welner is right on target. Community support is essential if we are going to make lasting improvements to our schools. So the question for school districts and unions is how to garner community support. One way is to fight it out. In theory, the district and the union can show the public they’re serious by opposing each other at every turn and compromising only when there’s no other option. But, while that approach may occasionally work in the short run, it never works in the long run. In my many years as a teacher and union leader, I have seen plenty of adversarial, us-versus-them school districts with mass firings, rhetorical attacks on teachers and school closures. But I have never seen a district like that produce great, lasting results for students.

A better way is for district officials and union members to work together to improve schools. Engaging in meaningful collaboration is not the same as a complacent acceptance of the status quo. In fact, it’s the best way to shake up the status quo—and the best way to build a strong school community in which business leaders, religious leaders, community members, teachers and parents are all committed to student success.

To learn about communities in which the school district and the union are making strides by working together, see my recent Huffington Post piece.

School districts and teacher unions have entered into a new era in public education where collaborative labor-management relations are at the heart of school improvement efforts. The challenge of educating all students to high levels of achievement requires educators and administrators to work as partners.

A lot can be accomplished “on the ground” to make successful, sustainable changes in our schools. In Florida, the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association ratified a new collective bargaining agreement that includes a new-teacher mentoring program, more rigorous educator and principal evaluation systems, and development of a new compensation system based on student achievement measured through a strong value-added formula. Hillsborough CTA is working collaboratively with the district to ensure its efforts lead to success for educators and students. Nationally, NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign is fostering agreements among educators, communities, and policymakers at all levels of government focused on attracting and keeping the best educators and securing resources for the nation’s neediest schools.

The federal government can also serve as an essential partner in student success. Where federal policymakers can have the greatest impact and be most helpful to local districts is in targeting funding for low-income public schools and ensuring equity for all students. We need guaranteed federal funding for authorized Title I and IDEA programs because only with predictable resources can we provide the programs that students need. We must protect and promote students’ equal access to education services and opportunities and never lose sight of our nation’s commitment to providing every student with a quality education.

Public education also deserves federal support for high-quality research. The Education Department should expand its services as a clearinghouse for best practices to help educators learn more about effective instruction and how to meet individual students’ needs. Neither districts nor states can afford that research, and it’s essential to educational improvement.

School transformation will happen at the local level - state by state, district by district – but the federal government must also play a critical role.

There was a report released six months ago that deserves more attention (I am not part of the group, but I'm very supportive of it): A Proposal for Sustainable School Transformation, released by Communities for Excellent Public Schools. Yes, districts and unions need to collaborate, but genuine and sustained/ongoing engagement with school communities is also crucial. Little of (positive) consequence will be achieved in these communities by waiting for the next push from DC or the next parachuting-in turnaround company. Let's invest our energies and resources in helping community members to strengthen educational and political voice and local capacity. There are good ideas here (the importance of good data, for instance), but even good ideas need local buy-in, engagement, crafting and participation.

District wide data on resource use can be a powerful catalyst for school improvement efforts at the local level. A district that can present a clear picture of its use of people, time and dollars across schools, students, and programs gives constituents a common language for decision-making, compromise, and reform. Accurate data on resource use dispel myths, highlight discrepancies, and point to areas where spending may be too high, revealing tough choices required to improve. Data also give the district the opportunity to quantify trade-offs when faced with a multi-million dollar budget gap. Although gathering and sharing data can be challenging, there are some steps districts can take to jumpstart the process and initiate difficult yet critical discussions. (See Practical Tools for District Transformation, available for download at no cost).

Recent efforts in Syracuse illustrate the power of data to inspire collaboration among diverse sectors of the community even in tough economic times. Like most urban districts nationwide, Syracuse is facing a deep and painful budget crisis and will be forced to cut nearly 15% of its budget. That’s could be as many as 1000 jobs in less than two years. This past November, despite these very hard times, School Superintendent Daniel Lowengard brought together a multi-sector coalition of school community stakeholders including, school and city leaders, representatives from the county, union, University, a local foundation Say Yes to Education, Education Resource Strategies (ERS), and several other national consultants. The meeting started with the in-depth resource analysis that Syracuse leaders had completed with ERS’s help the previous year. The data enabled an objective, action-oriented discussion in which all participants were committed to one goal--helping students realize their dreams even in tough economic times.

This kind of collaborative conversation is not new to Syracuse—though the painful nature of budget cuts is. Say Yes to Education provided seed money to Syracuse a couple years ago around the promise that every child would receive college tuition if they completed high school. The entire city has organized resources around a vision of supporting students to reach the goal of college readiness through frequent review of student progress and needs, providing after school and summer programming, support for social and emotional wellness needs and college access. That initial investment has been far reaching for many Syracuse students but the investment has also built a foundation for district leaders to look carefully at what they’re doing, strategically aligning resources towards improving instruction and support, and making tough choices with shrinking budgets.

Starting with data is not about budget-cutting. It is about using analysis to help everyone see clearly how districts are allocating resources, decide where they want to go, and then realign resources to get there. The economic crisis should not hinder this collaborative improvement process. In fact, it could play a role in accelerating it.

I really like the direction Bob Schaffer is taking.

But, before I get all excited about "local control" taking us there, I'd like for Bob to name 10 big districts where local school boards and bureaucrats: a) "treat teachers like professionals instead of union workers;" b) apply "more market forces to demand quality improvement;" c) achieve "better schools on lower budget;" and d) question and discard contemporary fads "that tend to divert precious classroom resources."

While a few districts are indeed out on the edge of such reforms, somehow I've missed seeing much evidence across the country that the best answers are always local.

Republican legislators in Washington, and states’ rights fans everywhere, may view the results of the mid-term election as an opportunity to restore some degree of local control to education. But in the short run, with ESEA reauthorization still on hold, and NCLB losing its steam, we may end up with a short term experiment in local control by default—or just a lot of waiting around hoping things will change on their own.

At present, the potential for large scale change seems small. Race to the Top and i3 are beginning to crank up. But cash-strapped states are cutting back. Busted budgets have suppressed much of the urgency schools have felt in recent years and given some an excuse to postpone reform altogether.

Historically, local control in education has been associated with the dogged preservation of the status quo. It’s hard to see how states—especially non-RttT states—will be pushing for change when their budgets are pushed to the limit. Even when happy days are here again, it’s still hard to imagine states making dramatic changes without federal pressure.

Even though NCLB is still in effect, most people know that it will soon be modified. The pressure of 2014 is off. With such large numbers of schools falling behind state achievement targets, even the scarlet letters “AYP” are losing their stigma. Secretary Duncan has no more money to give away. Federal leverage for educational change has reached a 10-year low.

What will happen on a local level? Small change amounting to no change. In my local district, for example, the hottest topic of discussion is whether or not all of our elementary schools should offer dual-language programs. This would be a modest expansion of a modestly successful program, but even if it goes through, its effect will hardly be noticed.

I’ve had meetings with a couple of superintendents recently. They are mired in budget cutting as our state has threatened significant reductions in school funding in an effort to tackle our $3.7 billion deficit. At the same time, local Republican legislators, fresh from their own mid-term successes, have been making noise about lifting our state’s charter cap. This would bring us more charter schools but it wouldn’t guarantee us more quality schools.

What I think about is not so much the period we’re in but the period we’re about to enter. How will modest modifications to NCLB change things? The original legislation represented core principals of reform. Even if the coming reauthorization leaves those ideals intact, they will likely be weakened. We’ll move forward, then, with something akin to NCLB-minus.

The next big shock to the system doesn’t look like it’s coming until the work of CCSSI and the consortia is in play and anew round of tougher testing begins. This means there’s plenty of time for flagging federal momentum to dissipate to the states, and for unenthusiastic states to pass the buck to budget-battered districts. The inadvertent re-emphasis of local control created by delayed reauthorization of NCLB, and enthusiasm only for tinkering at the margins, leaves reform at its nadir.

What I wonder is how or even if this will change down the road. If the testing consortia are to be believed, the new tests will be harder than the ones states are using now. That means scores will go down. At the same time, the high-pressure components of NCLB will likely have been stripped. States may face embarrassment but little more.

We already know from recently released studies that a large percentage of our kids are not college-ready. The consortia’s college-ready tests should bring that out in sharp relief. But what will happen then? Even if budgets have recovered, what will states do?

If we go back to the period just before NCLB, circa 1995-2000, most states were testing, most schools were scoring poorly, and most people didn’t care enough to do much about it. Living and working in the state of Washington at that time, I watched our leaders dole out tiny per pupil amounts to each school for “professional development” that had little impact. It was not local control’s finest hour. But it was the most aggressive form of educational change our state had ever attempted.

As control of schools gets more local, it becomes more fraught with petty conflict. At the district level, all it takes is a small parent revolt or—as we’ve seen here in nearby Wake County, NC—a single school board election to reverse course and turn a district in a completely new direction (only to be turned back, I suppose, by similar means shortly thereafter). Because all politics is local, local control of schools is more politicized. With the opportunity to weigh in, more factions are aroused. The result is the art of compromise by which politics defines itself. This means change by committee or no change at all.

NCLB is going to get its wings clipped. The next ESEA reauthorization doesn’t come up until 2020. Race to the Top and i3 money runs out in few years. A number of school turnarounds will be attempted, but if they are as statistically unsuccessful as previous turnarounds, few will succeed. New tests begin in a couple of years. And that’s that.

In the coming decade, states will regain the control over their schools that they had in the previous century. We may see a few charter caps lifted. We may see a few tenure laws changed. But as responsibility for reform gets pushed down to the districts and ultimately to individual schools, we’ll be right back where we were in the 90s—waiting and hoping that things will change on their own.

Policy makers cannot collaborate effectively until someone who sees that we are focused on measuring the wrong thing gets into a seat of power. It’s no secret that Americans are obsessed with measurement and data. We think if we can measure it, we can control it. Comparison and measurement are fine for many endeavors, but as far as educating our nation, we are making monumental backwards slides even as we move forward with new understandings of how a child’s brain develops, what motivates today’s student to learn and what assures a person a healthy and productive life. The PISA does not reveal whether or not the students taking it are emotionally, physically and spiritually capable of taking on the demands of the future. We act as though it does. We think just because people score well on a high stakes tests that this will translate into a more robust economy, healthier citizens and more meaningful and productive lives. Where is the proof of this? Where is the scientific research reporting this? According to the World Health Organization, China has three times as many suicides among women than the United States. Fifty percent of people in urban China who seek outpatient treatment are seen for depression.

Global Standardized test comparisons fail to capture what is happening in the whole ecosystem of education. The PISA metric captures what is most evident to the generation of Baby Boomers who grew up without most of the technologies that define the social, educational and business networks currently available to the students we educate. We are applying an old metric to a new world. The race to the moon was a Boomer’s challenge. For young people today, it’s not about racing, except in sports (which by the way, Shanghai schools have cut in favor of more testing time). Today’s students need to be literate, however, literacy today is vastly more wide ranging than what the PISA measures.

I agree with Lisa Graham Keegan’s response that people who are not interested in urgent progress should step aside. All collaborations from here on out should put their time, energy and talent into developing the world’s best way to first define how to educate for the future rather than the past. Tom Vander Ark’s suggestions are indicative of the way of education in the future. Let’s get focused on defining what students need before we measure it. Our current measurements for achievement will not suffice in measuring innovation. National, state and local policy makers would do well to put collaborative effort into figuring out how we can assure that children who learn online can remain optimally engaged to inspire innovation, become effective team members across national divides and develop the skills that will keep the world safe from ignorance. Let’s figure out the best way to that and then go to work developing an adequate measuring system.

There’s certainly nothing good about a flat economy. There’s even less that’s positive about the precarious actions our federal government has tripped through over the past three years that have made matters worse.

Economic uncertainty, however, should be embraced by school leaders as good enough a reason as any to insist upon structural reforms to improve education systems. Treating teachers like real professionals instead of union workers comes to mind.

So does, applying more market forces to demand quality improvement. It’s always a good time to treat more parents like customers and children like real Americans.

The most pragmatic answers about school improvement are indeed local in nature. Solutions that fail to acknowledge the Constitution’s placement of these matters squarely within the jurisdiction of the states, local communities and ultimately parents, are European-style fads that rarely work very well and never work for long.

Former Commissioner of Education for Colorado, Dr. Bill Moloney recently released an uplifting issue brief suggesting we can achieve “better schools on lower budgets.” Produced for the Denver-based Centennial Institute, Moloney’s paper makes a sobering analysis of situations in Colorado that are similar to those of other states.

In his report (CLICK HERE), he makes a compelling case for questioning contemporary fads that have sidetracked America’s public schools, for discarding many of them and for abandoning academic distractions that tend to divert precious classrooms resources. For example, class-size reduction has shown little beneficial impact, he asserts, certainly not for the money.

Dr. Moloney’s report is worth a read by anyone serious about education policy, reform and management. Attention to what states and school districts can actually do offers the promise of yielding far greater practical results than does the current federal inclination to hurl larger grenades of yet-to-be-printed cash in the general direction of the country’s most serious academic crisis points.

Dr. Moloney is right when he points out, “nothing is beyond our reach, if we care enough.”

First things first: I can't accept the premise that "getting along" in American education leads to progress. In fact, I would argue that seeking it for it's own sake is a too familiar sinkhole.

Instead, I'd like to argue for a simpler strategy: Replacement.

For too long, we have been begging significant numbers of those who occupy chairs at "the table" to join in seeking radically improved academic achievement. We have failed in getting them to simply desire it, much less to help define and measure it, or provide ready access to it. We have worn ourselves out and cheated millions of children, trying to forge consensus on what should already be obvious.

Enough.

We all know what excellence for students looks like...in a myriad of practices and governance models, and from traditional classrooms to new and highly innovative settings. We can also name the individuals and organizations whose track record reflects dedication to this excellence.

I think a spectacular New Year's resolution would be to quit holding rapid progress hostage to getting along with those whose seats at the table have been earned by nothing more than tradition.

I say, lets all get along...and get out of the way if urgent progress isn't your kind of thing. Instead, let's respectfully excuse useless chair holders and replace them with urgent, proven leaders and organizations who have battled their way into existence, and whose record says they are serious.

Now THAT will be a happy new year. Here's to the best we have to offer our children in 2011.

If the goal is more college and career ready students, the variable that will make the biggest difference is state leadership.

For 15 years, states have been aggregating control over the major levers: standards, assessment, data, and finances. Like it or not, good or bad, states are now the most important players in American education. And online learning is reinforcing that. The expansion of and potential for online learning suggests statewide solutions. The Internet doesn't respect district boundaries but many states still limit learning options by district. To guide state policy makers, former governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise chaired a policy development process resulting in Digital Learning Now, 10 recommendations for state policy makers. As Gov Wise pointed out in The Online Learning Imperative, it's impossible to solve the achievement gap, teaching gap, and financial gap without incorporating online learning into state and local plans. Here's three policy priorities that could make education better and less expensive: 1) All students have access to at least several online schools on a full or part time basis; 2) Funding should follow the student to the course level with incentives for achievement, completion, and innovation; and 3) Students should progress when they demonstrate competence not when they get a year older. States need to attack gaps for schools to make progress in 2011.