Give Kids Good Schools is a national campaign to guarantee a quality public education for every child in the nation. Through national activities and online resources, the campaign seeks to provide Americans with the information and tools they need to take action in their communities and improve their public schools.

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On Monday, August 28th, Public Education Network’s (PEN) announced its new Give Kids Good Schools campaign in Washington, D.C. In conjunction with the announcement, PEN released a new national poll in which the American public said public education is the number one issue local leaders should address, edging out health care, the economy and fears of terrorism at the local level. The same poll indicated that 84 percent of the American public believes the quality of public schools has stayed the same or declined over the past five years. Give Kids Good Schools is a multi-year campaign aimed at achieving the goal of quality public education for all children by building a constituency of Americans who will use their voices and votes improve our public schools. A new website will help the public stay informed about issues that impact public schools and provide ideas for taking action to improve public schools in the community. The website will be a central resource for information, facts and materials about public schools and will provide easy-to-use materials for individuals. The campaign was featured in the August 27th cover story of PARADE magazine. The stories highlighted by PARADE demonstrate that when individuals make a commitment to their public schools and all sectors of the community are engaged, schools can show measurable improvement. Please visit http://www.givekidsgoodschools.org/pledge to sign the pledge to demonstrate your commitment to making sure that ALL children in America receive a quality public education.

Give Kids Good Schools encourages individuals to:

Learn the facts about quality public schools

Vote to support and promote quality public education in your community and across the country

Act by letting public officials and others know that quality public education is a top priority all year long
Campaign Spotlight

GKGS Featured in PARADE Magazine
Read the article or visit the links below to learn how these groups are improving public schools in their communities
Bridgeport Public Education Fund (Connecticut)
Coalition for Community Schools
KnowledgeWorks Foundation (Ohio)
Mobile Area Education Foundation (Alabama)
Public Education Foundation (Chattanooga, TN)

08.28.2006 -- Americans Say Education Should Be The Top Priority
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
Monday, August 28, 2006 Paul Shepard
Direct line: (202) 572-2875
Cell: (202) 352-0377
paul.shepard@gmmb.com

AMERICANS SAY EDUCATION SHOULD BE THE TOP PRIORITY FOR LOCAL LEADERS

New campaign – Give Kids Good Schools – aims to empower Americans and provide tools and information needed to help improve our nation’s public schools

WASHINGTON, DC— In a recent national poll released today, the American public said public education is the number one issue local leaders should address, edging out health care, the economy and fears of terrorism at the local level. The poll was released at the launch of Give Kids Good Schools, a campaign aimed at helping the public improve America’s public schools. Give Kids Good Schools is sponsored by Public Education Network, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to quality public education for all children.

The same poll indicates that 84 percent of the American public believes the quality of public schools has stayed the same or declined over the past five years. The poll of 1900 adults was conducted by Lake Research Partners and has a margin of error of +/- 2.3 percent.

“When it comes to the importance of improving our public schools, Americans do get it,” said Wendy D. Puriefoy, president of the Public Education Network. “They want to make a difference, but they don’t feel like they know what to do. Give Kids Good Schools will offer the American public the information and power they need to make public education a priority on Election Day and every day.”

Give Kids Good Schools is a multi-year campaign that intends to build a constituency of Americans who will use their voices and votes to achieve the goal of quality public education for all children. A new Web site, GiveKidsGoodSchools.org, will help the public stay informed about issues that impact public schools and provide ideas for taking action to improve public schools in the community. The Web site will be a central resource for information, facts and materials about public schools and will provide easy to use materials such as:

FAQs About Public Schools: The Web site includes answers to commonly asked questions about public schools in the U.S.
How is My School Doing? A partnership with SchoolMatters.com will allow individuals to find information about their local school districts on our site.
Tips to Start Public School Conversations: Questions to ask school boards, principals, teachers and students are provided.
At the heart of the campaign will be Give Kids Good Schools Week, to be held October 16-22 this year. During this week, PEN’s constituency of Local Education Funds (LEFs) and other partners will help to engage the public at the local level in grassroots activities. Community conversations, education forums, and other locally-driven events will provide opportunities for individuals to take action and discuss new ideas about what communities can do to give kids good schools. At GiveKidsGoodSchools.org, individuals can find out what is happening in their state or they can use online toolkits and materials to plan their own event or show their support during the Week.

As chronicled this week in PARADE magazine, public engagement can make the difference in local public schools. The stories highlighted in the article demonstrate that when individuals make a commitment to their public schools and all sectors of the community are engaged, schools can show measurable improvement.

“In reporting this story, we saw first hand the impact communities can have on their public schools,” said Lee Kravitz, editor-in-chief, PARADE magazine. “Groups of dedicated, hard-working people have found inventive ways to turn their schools around and have built a strong foundation, not only for their students, but for the future health of their communities.”

“Involving the public in our public schools and creating community ownership has been tremendously beneficial,” said Carolyn Akers, executive director of Mobile Area Education Foundation, from Mobile, Alabama, one of the communities profiled in PARADE. “Our public schools are better and our community is stronger because of the real commitment to quality public education.”

Give Kids Good Schools also released a public service announcement campaign. The television, radio, print, and Internet public service announcements will run throughout the country now through Give Kids Good Schools Week in October and beyond.

“There are many public schools that are working because of their communities’ commitments to making public schools the best they can be,” said Puriefoy. “But we want ALL children in the United States to receive a quality public education no matter where they live. We need to spread the word that individuals have the power to make a difference in their public schools, and the time to take action is now.”

Public Education Network (www.PublicEducation.org) is a national constituency of local education funds (LEFs) and individuals working to improve public schools and build public support for quality public education for poor and disadvantaged children in low-income communities across the nation. PEN and its 79 LEF members work in 34 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico on behalf of 11.5 million children in more than 16,000 schools, seeking to bring the community voice into the debate on quality public education in the firm belief that an active, vocal constituency will ensure every child, in every community, a quality public education. In addition, PEN’s international affiliates serve more than 7 million children in Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines.

Oxford Analytica
Bush's Education Reforms FalterOxford Analytica 08.29.06, 6:00 AM ET
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Education reform has an exceptionally fraught history in the United States, despite the universally acknowledged inadequacy of the primary and secondary education systems. This woeful record, which now includes President George Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), is due to the idiosyncrasies of the U.S. political system and serious structural disincentives. Unless these challenges can be overcome in relatively short order, NCLB may fail.

Some public policy fields exhibit high rates of technical success and political prestige. However, most public policy innovations enjoy lower success rates because:

-- the technical knowledge required for the successful delivery of particular policy outcomes is not available;

-- politicians, interested parties and voters typically contest a policy's principles, objectives, instruments, costs, or effectiveness; and

-- adoption of all public policies implicitly or explicitly defines some winners and losers.

U.S. education policy exhibits all three of these characteristics and is, accordingly, politicized. Furthermore, it has two additional, wholly distinctive, traits:

Cultural emphasis: It has enjoyed widespread public cultural, political and tax support.

Locally based: Its content and financing have been largely determined at the state and local level, and it is governed through "school districts."

Those involved in forming and delivering education policy are not necessarily oriented to maximizing either efficiency or effectiveness. Moreover, the incidence of U.S. educational failure has been densely concentrated in poor and ethnic minority areas and remains so.

NCLB's key requirements were that:

-- each state set annual tests in mathematics and English for children from grades three to eight, assessing their attainment against federally-approved standards;

-- all school teachers be "highly-qualified" by 2006;

-- all pupils achieve specified levels of competence in mathematics, science, and English by 2013-14 ;

-- any school that failed to reach stipulated AYP in two successive years would be subject to federal sanctions;

-- persistent failure by a school would result in heavier federal penalties; and

-- school districts provide special tuition for pupils "left behind."

This package of measures owed much to the principles underlying most recent global public sector reform efforts: the object was to alter the incentive structures of education managers, teachers and school pupils.

Politically the president assumed three major risks in taking the NCLB initiative:

Republican dissent: By locating NCLB's management in the Department of Education, he risked a damaging confrontation with congressional Republicans. Party leaders had long opposed federal regulation of education policy.

Uncharacteristic bipartisanship: Bush took on the risk of building a bipartisan congressional coalition in support of education reform.

Uncertain political gains: Finally, the political payoffs of education reform were both uncertain and long-term.

The NCLB Act has no fewer than 588 requirements, most of which require coordination between federal, state and local governments. This structure, and the processes to which the Act gives rise, combine to make for a forbiddingly complicated policy environment:

Unequal starting points: The Act does not permit changes in children's performances to be measured in ways that take account of their starting positions.

Wildly divergent standards: Comparison of federal and state assessment criteria shows little correspondence between the proportion of children graded as proficient on federal and state tests. Education targets are frequently moved, and target setting is politicized.

No alternative providers: NCLB's requirement that persistently failing schools teaching children from poor families provide a choice either of transfer to a new school or of private-sector tutoring has been only partly implemented.

State resistance: Distaste for federal intrusion also hampers implementation.

NCLB built upon half a century of growing federal involvement in education. Nevertheless, the results have been disappointing, particularly for the most marginalized students. Despite the NCLB, the available data indicates that children's education prospects and life chances continue to be broadly directed by their family circumstances.

To read an extended version of this article, log on to Oxford Analytica's Web site.

Oxford Analytica is an independent strategic-consulting firm drawing on a network of more than 1,000 scholar experts at Oxford and other leading universities and research institutions around the world. For more information, please visit www.oxan.com. To find out how to subscribe to the firm's Daily Brief Service, click here.