Navigating curriculum and culture wars: What happened to public school?

On this episode of No More Sidewalks , host Abby McCloskey speaks with Margaret Spellings, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center and former secretary of education during the George W.

在本期《不再人行道》中，主持人艾比·麦克洛斯基与两党政策中心主席、乔治·W·布什总统执政期间的前教育部长玛格丽特·斯佩林斯进行了交谈。

Bush administration, about changes to public education, including dropping student achievement scores and growing distrust in public schools.

布什政府对公共教育的改革，包括降低学生成绩分数和对公立学校日益增长的不信任。

In the conversation, they explore the role of standardized testing, screens, reading lists, curriculum, and culture wars—alongside other potential factors for these changes—while discussing solutions to contribute to children’s education.

在对话中，他们探讨了标准化测试、屏幕、阅读清单、课程和文化战争的作用，以及这些变化的其他潜在因素，同时讨论了有助于儿童教育的解决方案。

Abby M.

艾比·M。

McCloskey is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and the Dallas Morning News .

麦克洛斯基是《彭博社观点》和《达拉斯晨报》的专栏作家。

She is a nonresident fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.

她是布鲁金斯学会经济研究的非常驻研究员。

She is founder and principal of McCloskey Policy LLC, a research and consulting firm serving business and political leaders across the country.

她是 McCloskey Policy LLC 的创始人兼负责人，该公司是一家为全国各地的商业和政治领导人提供服务的研究和咨询公司。

A nationally recognized leader in public policy, Margaret Spellings serves as President and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

玛格丽特·斯佩林斯是全国公认的公共政策领导者，担任两党政策中心总裁兼首席执行官。

Spellings most recently served as President and CEO of Texas 2036, a bipartisan think tank.

斯佩林斯最近担任两党智囊团 Texas 2036 的总裁兼首席执行官。

Her extensive leadership experience in state and federal government includes service as U.S. Secretary of Education, White House Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, Senior Policy Advisor to then-Governor George W.

她在州和联邦政府的丰富领导经验包括担任美国教育部长、白宫首席国内政策顾问、时任州长乔治·W·布什的高级政策顾问。

Bush, President of the George W.

布什，乔治·W·布什总统

Bush Presidential Center, and President of the 17-institution University of North Carolina System.

布什总统中心，以及由 17 所院校组成的北卡罗来纳大学系统的主席。

As a parent, public school used to be a reliable anchor.

作为家长，公立学校曾经是可靠的支柱。

It was a place where you dropped your kids off at 8:00 a.m.

这是您早上 8:00 送孩子下车的地方。

and trusted they were learning the basics of reading, writing, and math.

并相信他们正在学习阅读、写作和数学的基础知识。

And as a nation, education has been one of the biggest public investments we’ve made in our children.

作为一个国家，教育一直是我们对孩子最大的公共投资之一。

But schools aren’t working like they used to.

但学校并没有像以前那样运作。

For starters, millions of kids simply aren’t showing up.

首先，数以百万计的孩子根本就没有出现。

Nearly one in four kids are absent for at least 10% of the school year.

近四分之一的孩子在学年至少有 10% 的时间缺勤。

There’s been a collapse in student achievement.

学生的成绩大幅下滑。

According to the “Nation’s Report Card,” math scores for American 12th graders reached their lowest level on record last year, and reading scores have dropped to 1990s levels.

根据《国家成绩单》，去年美国 12 年级学生的数学成绩达到了有记录以来的最低水平，阅读成绩也下降到了 90 年代的水平。

Much of the teaching and classwork has been outsourced to screens.

大部分教学和课堂作业都外包给屏幕。

There’s gun violence in schools now, and like so many other areas of our public life, schools feel filled with partisan controversy.

现在学校里存在枪支暴力，就像我们公共生活的许多其他领域一样，学校充满了党派争议。

We’re fighting about who can go into whose locker rooms and which library books are on the shelves.

我们正在争论谁可以进入谁的更衣室以及图书馆的书架上有哪些书籍。

How did the baseline promise of public education get off track, academically and otherwise?

公共教育的基线承诺是如何在学术和其他方面偏离正轨的？

And how do parents navigate the school system?

家长如何驾驭学校系统？

With us to discuss all of this is the great Margaret Spellings.

与我们一起讨论这一切的是伟大的玛格丽特·斯佩林斯。

I really can’t think of anybody else in the country who’s better to discuss this.

我真的想不出这个国家还有谁比他更适合讨论这个问题。

It’s the truth, because she served as secretary of education, a position few people can claim.

这是事实，因为她担任过教育部长，这是一个很少有人能担任的职位。

She was president of the George W.

她是乔治·W·布什总统。

Bush Presidential Center.

布什总统中心。

And she currently serves as president of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, where I’m also a fellow.

她目前担任华盛顿两党政策中心主席，我也是该中心的研究员。

And you know, it hasn’t been so long since I was a user of the system, if you will.

你知道，如果你愿意的话，我成为这个系统的用户并没有多久。

And so to answer your question personally, well, I hope, and I’d like to think that my children would be reading on grade level, and certainly they went on to be successful college graduates, and one has a master’s and a law degree the other.

因此，就我个人而言，我希望我的孩子们能够按年级水平阅读，当然他们后来成为了成功的大学毕业生，一个拥有硕士学位，另一个拥有法律学位。

But I would be paying attention to the kind of curriculum.

但我会关注课程的类型。

I would be paying attention to the kind of assessment, the accountability, the report card, but more than that, I’d hope to have a home full of books and literature, steeped in content.

我会关注评估的类型、问责制、成绩单，但更重要的是，我希望有一个充满书籍和文献、内容丰富的家。

What do you attribute that to?

您认为这归因于什么？

I mean, that feels, as a parent, that feels really concerning, and I’m not exactly sure how to have a better pulse on what’s actually going on in the classroom.

我的意思是，作为一名家长，这感觉真的很令人担忧，而且我不太确定如何更好地了解课堂上实际发生的情况。

So, you know, attend to your state standards, yes.

所以，你知道，遵守你的国家标准，是的。

But how do the Texas standards or the South Carolina standards or the fill-in-the-blank standards compare to proficiency on our national education report card?

但是，德克萨斯州标准或南卡罗来纳州标准或填空标准与我们国家教育成绩单上的熟练程度相比如何呢？

So, you know, there’s a lot of homework for parents these days to really fully understand what’s going on with your kid.

所以，你知道，现在父母需要做很多作业才能真正完全了解孩子的情况。

And frankly, I would say that if 90% of the parents think their kids are doing well, but half are, you know, there’s a lot of work to do there.

坦率地说，我想说，如果 90% 的父母认为他们的孩子做得很好，但只有一半的父母认为他们的孩子做得很好，你知道，那还有很多工作要做。

And as a parent it can make you feel pretty powerless up and against large districts and school systems and testing that most of us have no control over, except for those of us who write columns or those of us who run the agency in charge of it.

作为家长，它会让你在面对我们大多数人无法控制的大学区、学校系统和测试时感到非常无能为力，除了我们中那些撰写专栏的人或我们中那些负责运营相关机构的人。

So I want to zoom out then, because at the macro level, we do know that these student achievement scores are going down.

所以我想缩小范围，因为在宏观层面上，我们确实知道这些学生的成绩正在下降。

Now, when you look at our most kind of objective metric that goes across states nationwide, it is a fact that they’re going down, and I want to talk with you about what’s behind these declining scores.

现在，当你看看我们在全国各州的最客观的指标时，你会发现它们正在下降，这是事实，我想和你谈谈这些下降的背后的原因。

There’s a whole host of things that I could come up with just thinking about it for a few minutes.

只要思考几分钟，我就能想到很多事情。

I’m sure you know even more than than I do, but let’s just kind of run through them.

我相信你知道的比我还多，但让我们简单介绍一下。

So the first big one is absenteeism, and I say it’s a big one both in terms of its scale, but it also feels pretty new.

所以第一个大问题是缺勤，我说它的规模很大，但也感觉很新。

I think it’s something that really spiked.

我认为这是真正飙升的事情。

It went up, like, 50% during COVID, and now we have this case where a quarter of kids for, you know, a decent chunk of the year are just not there.

在新冠疫情期间，这个数字上升了大约 50%，而现在我们遇到了这样的情况，即一年中相当长的一段时间里，有四分之一的孩子都没有在家。

And there’s, you know, the introduction of screens in the classroom, which was exacerbated during COVID when people were handed out school-sponsored devices because they may or may not have ones at home, but had been slowly being rolled out either in the form of, like, phones in the backpack or why don’t we, you know, all just kind of work off a tablet for our homework and, and all of a sudden it seems like, let me look at the stat, 81% of elementary school teachers said that students receive school-sponsored devices for classroom use by kindergarten.

你知道，教室里引入了屏幕，在新冠疫情期间，这种情况变得更加严重，当时人们被分发了学校赞助的设备，因为他们家里可能有也可能没有，但这些设备一直在慢慢地以背包中的手机的形式推出，或者我们为什么不，你知道，大家都用平板电脑来做作业，突然之间，让我看一下统计数据，81% 的小学老师说，学生接收学校赞助的设备供幼儿园在课堂上使用。

And do we know if kind of this amount of tech is supporting learning, or is this part of the reason for the declining scores too?

我们是否知道这么多的技术是否在支持学习，或者这也是分数下降的原因之一？

And, you know, we can’t expect individual school districts or even states to mount a fulsome gold standard research effort.

而且，你知道，我们不能指望个别学区甚至州开展全面的黄金标准研究工作。

That is what has long been a a big part of the federal government’s role and why I believe, and we’ll get into this, that we do need that federal role in in education.

这就是长期以来联邦政府角色​​的重要组成部分，也是为什么我相信并且我们将讨论这个问题，我们确实需要联邦政府在教育方面发挥作用。

So yes, screens have to be part of it, or that’s a good thesis, I think.

所以，是的，屏幕必须是其中的一部分，否则我认为这是一个很好的论文。

We don’t really know to what extent.

我们真的不知道到什么程度。

You know, when I hear things like that, kindergartners, I mean, is that a Leapfrog?

你知道，当我听到这样的事情时，幼儿园的孩子们，我的意思是，那是蛙跳吗？

How do we define technology and screen?

我们如何定义技术和屏幕？

You know, your child is probably in front of a TV before kindergarten, and that’s a screen.

你知道，你的孩子在上幼儿园之前可能就在电视机前，那是一个屏幕。

Sesame Street , whatever.

芝麻街，无论如何。

So I, I don’t know, I really, I want to understand kind of what’s underneath that.

所以我，我不知道，我真的，我想了解其背后的内容。

But, you know, it’s, it’s a stew of things.

但是，你知道，这是一锅杂菜。

I would say that the biggest issue is we took our foot off the gas on accountability and on expectations.

我想说，最大的问题是我们在责任和期望方面放松了警惕。

Whether you love it or hate it, No Child Left Behind said, We care about reading and math.

无论你喜欢还是讨厌，“不让一个孩子掉队”说，“我们关心阅读和数学。”

We’re asking the states to develop assessments around their own standards, not a national set of standards, and test every year in grades 3 through 8 and one single time in high school.

我们要求各州围绕自己的标准（而不是一套国家标准）制定评估，并每年在 3 至 8 年级进行测试，并在高中进行一次测试。

And that we would disaggregate this information.

我们会分解这些信息。

That means understand our Hispanic kids versus our African American kids versus Anglo girls, boys, and so forth.

这意味着了解我们的西班牙裔孩子与非裔美国孩子与盎格鲁女孩、男孩等。

And we’d really understand what the hell was going on.

我们真的明白到底发生了什么。

And we would require people to get to their definition of grade level expectations to be determined by states.

我们将要求人们了解由各州确定的年级水平期望的定义。

And we were on that trajectory for a good while, and then we stopped doing that.

我们在这个轨道上呆了很长一段时间，然后我们就停止这样做了。

And boom!

繁荣！

And so that was the beginning of the end.

这就是结局的开始。

Yes, other factors: COVID, screens, absenteeism, et cetera, mental health, all the logs you want to put on the fire.

是的，还有其他因素：新冠肺炎、屏幕、缺勤等等、心理健康、所有你想付诸实施的因素。

But we’ve stopped caring enough to find out and do anything about it.

但我们已经不再关心它并采取任何行动。

But again, taking off my researcher hat and putting on my parent hat and having kids in public schools, it feels like now, and it was the case the few years my kids were in public school here in Texas, that there were so many tests, Margaret.

但再次，摘下我的研究员帽子，戴上我的家长帽子，让孩子在公立学校读书，感觉就像现在，我的孩子在德克萨斯州公立学校的那几年就是这样，有这么多的测试，玛格丽特。

There were tests, there was preparation tests for tests.

有测试，有测试的准备测试。

The whole curriculum felt like it was around tests.

整个课程感觉就像是围绕着考试。

All of a sudden we weren’t doing things like handwriting and spelling and reading whole books.

突然之间，我们不再做诸如手写、拼写和阅读整本书之类的事情。

Everything, it felt like it was oriented around teaching to this test, and as we raised earlier, it’s like, what are the tests even actually measuring?

一切，感觉就像是围绕这个测试的教学，正如我们之前提出的，就像，测试实际上测量了什么？

Now, you know, I am the Testing Queen.

现在，你知道，我是测试女王。

I’m a, you know, what gets measured gets done, you gotta care enough to find out.

我是一个，你知道，凡是被衡量的事情都会被完成，你必须足够关心才能发现。

What’s the alternative to caring enough to find out?

除了足够关心去寻找答案之外，还有什么其他选择呢？

But adults in the system kind of went crazy around that.

但系统中的成年人对此有点疯狂。

And so because the the so-called high-stakes accountability — high stakes for who, I wonder?

因此，因为所谓的高风险责任——我想知道谁的高风险？

What are the stakes for a kid who can’t read or get a job?

对于一个无法读书或找不到工作的孩子来说，风险是什么？

That’s pretty high stakes to me.

这对我来说是相当高的风险。

But anyway, I think that that speaks to adult behavior more than it does to the federal law.

但无论如何，我认为这更多地涉及成年人的行为，而不是联邦法律。

But I I think adults at the local level have kind of gone a little bit crazy.

但我认为当地的成年人有点疯狂。

And frankly, and this has been the political, we talk about why did these things on the retrenchment.

坦率地说，这一直是政治问题，我们谈论为什么要在裁员上做这些事情。

Well, the politics got bad because conservatives were concerned about, first of all, resources going to schools that were not their schools, and unions and and others on the left, administrators and so forth, didn’t like accountability for the adults.

好吧，政治变得糟糕，因为保守派首先担心资源流向不是他们学校的学校，而工会和其他左翼人士、管理人员等不喜欢对成年人负责。

And so we kind of got into a political situation where there wasn’t leadership around the premise here, which is we gotta care, we gotta measure, and we gotta focus on two subjects in particular.

因此，我们陷入了一种政治局面，在这个前提下没有领导力，我们必须关心，我们必须衡量，我们必须特别关注两个主题。

And and frankly, a lot of what I call the fine print around what was good enough.

坦率地说，有很多我所说的关于什么是足够好的细则。

So in Texas, for example, you know, the definition of the school year might have been the school year starts on, you know, November 1 and ends on, you know, March 1.

例如，在德克萨斯州，学年的定义可能是学年从 11 月 1 日开始，到 3 月 1 日结束。

Well, that exempts out a bunch of students who are migrating with their families around the country for agricultural reasons or whatever.

好吧，这排除了一群因农业原因或其他原因与家人一起移民到全国各地的学生。

The definition of the the sample size.

样本量的定义。

I mean, how many kids have to count before you count them for that group for an accountability system?

我的意思是，在将他们算入问责制度的该组之前，必须统计多少个孩子？

So in small rural schools, if there’s eight kids, not 15, you know.

所以在小型乡村学校，如果有 8 个孩子，而不是 15 个，你知道。

So the details matter in this stuff.

所以细节在这件事上很重要。

It’s complicated.

情况很复杂。

And so, it feels like the curriculum has gotten more fancy, I don’t know that that’s also kind of changed, and what’s your sense of that?

所以，感觉课程变得更加花哨了，我不知道这也发生了一些变化，你对此有何感想？

Is that just anecdotal or is that contributing to this?

这只是轶事还是促成了这一点？

But it was, it was decisive.

但确实如此，这是决定性的。

It informed the pieces of No Child Left Behind that were focused on around reading.

它为《不让一个孩子掉队》中围绕阅读的内容提供了信息。

But then it became political, and we, you know, went the other direction.

但后来它变成了政治，我们，你知道，走了另一个方向。

And there’s a whole apparatus around whole language and, you know, teacher colleges and so forth.

有一个围绕整个语言的完整机构，你知道，还有师范学院等等。

So we lost track of the of the narrative and went down, and now it, it’s ascended again, so that’s good.

所以我们失去了对叙事的追踪并下降了，现在它又上升了，所以这很好。

The same thing is happening in math.

同样的事情也发生在数学中。

You know, gosh, and like you, I mean, I can barely even understand what are they talking about.

你知道，天哪，就像你一样，我的意思是，我几乎听不懂他们在说什么。

And whether it’s math or reading, we know for sure that kids have to have facility and ease of use.

无论是数学还是阅读，我们确信孩子们必须拥有设施和易用性。

You know, if you’re struggling to sound something out and it’s a labor to learn to read, you’re not gonna read books for joy.

你知道，如果你在努力弄清楚某件事，并且学习阅读是一件费力的事，那么你就不会快乐地读书。

Of course you’re not.

当然不是。

If you can’t have facility, fast factual accuracy that you get from practice, like you’d get from flashcards, you’re not gonna love science and physics because it’s too laborious to get to the starting line.

如果你不能从练习中获得便利、快速的事实准确性，就像你从抽认卡中获得的那样，你就不会喜欢科学和物理，因为到达起跑线太费力了。

And yet, like, it feels hard to think about how to address any of these things without more money.

然而，如果没有更多的钱，很难想象如何解决这些问题。

So just how does money go into this equation of falling student achievement scores, or does it?

那么，金钱到底是如何进入学生成绩下降的等式的呢？或者确实如此？

We did some work here at the BPC that was really interesting, some polling with teachers that, you know, the number one thing for them was, yes, pay.

我们在 BPC 做了一些非常有趣的工作，对老师进行了一些民意调查，你知道，对他们来说，最重要的事情是，是的，工资。

They want to be able to support their families.

他们希望能够养家糊口。

Who doesn’t?

谁不呢？

But it was also about the conditions in classroom.

但这也与课堂条件有关。

It was about the need to work multiple jobs, often out of their field.

这是因为需要从事多种工作，而且往往超出了他们的领域。

You know, if you’re driving an Uber at night, are you gonna be a an excellent teacher the following morning?

你知道，如果你晚上开优步，第二天早上你会成为一名优秀的老师吗？

Probably not.

可能不会。

And so, you know, how do we really support teachers with research-based instruction, help them be more effective on the job, giving the kind of wage that doesn’t require them to work multiple jobs?

所以，你知道，我们如何真正通过基于研究的教学来支持教师，帮助他们提高工作效率，并提供不需要他们从事多种工作的工资？

A lot of those are in the summer.

其中很多都是在夏天。

That’s fine.

没关系。

Some of those summer jobs are connected to education and tutoring or summer camps or whatnot.

其中一些暑期工作与教育和辅导或夏令营等有关。

That’s additive.

那是附加的。

But, you know, to really understand how teachers contribute, because the research tells us emphatically, a great teacher makes all the difference.

但是，你知道，要真正了解教师如何做出贡献，因为研究强调地告诉我们，一位伟大的教师会带来一切。

Do you want to work in the most challenging education environment that’s poorly resourced with big absentee problems?

您想在最具挑战性、资源匮乏、缺勤问题严重的教育环境中工作吗？

No, you do not.

不，你没有。

So who is in those schools are are brand new, less experienced, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

所以这些学校里的学生都是全新的、经验不足的，等等。

And so we’ve got, we’ve got to pay our best people to do the hardest work, and we don’t for a lot of reasons.

所以我们必须付钱给最优秀的人来做最艰苦的工作，但出于很多原因我们没有这么做。

Switching gears to some of the culture war and curriculum stuff, okay, which feels kind of ick.

转向一些文化战争和课程内容，好吧，这感觉有点恶心。

But the culture wars feel like they’re everywhere today, including in our schools.

但文化战争如今似乎无处不在，包括我们的学校。

And in some ways, all cultural pressures have shown up in schools for a long time, like thinking back to prayer in school, or mandatory kindergarten, or school busing, or all these different things.

在某些方面，所有文化压力长期以来都在学校中显现出来，比如回想一下学校里的祈祷，或者强制性幼儿园，或者校车，或者所有这些不同的事情。

And yet, you know, when I’m talking to friends my age of school-aged children, it is largely the cultural stuff that will come up in conversation as kind of the rub.

然而，你知道，当我和我这个年龄的学龄儿童朋友交谈时，对话中主要会出现文化方面的问题。

It won’t be academics, maybe because we don’t actually really know how the kids are doing academically.

这不会是学术问题，也许是因为我们实际上并不真正了解孩子们的学业表现。

It seems to hold, and I just, I don’t know, is it an outsized place in the mind of parents?

这似乎是成立的，但我只是，我不知道，这在父母心目中是不是一个过大的地方？

Is it just getting promoted more, and it’s noise and social media, and everyone kind of wants there to be another battleground?

是不是只是得到了更多的晋升，噪音和社交媒体，每个人都希望有另一个战场？

Or is this a new feature of what a shared system like public education looks like in a country that’s increasingly politically polarized?

或者，这是否是一个政治两极分化日益严重的国家公共教育等共享系统的新特征？

How do you, how do you think about the culture and stuff?

您如何看待文化和事物？

But what I would say as, you know, we we have to keep the main thing the main thing.

但我想说的是，你知道，我们必须把主要的事情放在主要的事情上。

And whether kids are reading the Bible or reading, you know, fill-in-the-blank controversial book, what we need our kids to do is read.

无论孩子们是读圣经还是读有争议的填空书，我们需要孩子做的就是阅读。

You know?

你知道？

And obviously there’s lots of grist for the mill in there, and that’s why people go to school board meetings and talk about reading lists, and that gets litigated.

显然，那里有很多东西，这就是为什么人们去学校董事会会议并谈论阅读清单，这会引起诉讼。

But we have to make sure that, you know, the the actual ability of our kids are not lost in the culture wars.

但我们必须确保，你知道，我们孩子的实际能力不会在文化战争中消失。

And so well, that takes leadership, it takes common sense, it takes activism.

所以，这需要领导力，需要常识，需要行动主义。

But, you know, I I do think it’s a reflection of what’s going on in the world around us.

但是，你知道，我确实认为这反映了我们周围世界正在发生的事情。

And I also think that it’s often a red herring, a kind of a watch the birdie.

我还认为这通常是一种转移注意力的行为，一种观察小鸟的行为。

Let’s talk about who’s in the bathroom.

我们来谈谈谁在浴室里。

Let’s talk about, you know, what’s going on on the band, in the band uniform or at, you know, whatever, as opposed to how are the kids doing on these basic things that are gonna predict the future of our country and our economy.

让我们谈谈乐队里发生的事情，乐队制服上发生的事情，或者你知道的，无论什么，而不是孩子们在这些将预测我们国家和经济未来的基本事情上做得如何。

It feels feels like that is only the beginning of kind of the impact that something like artificial intelligence is gonna have on education.

感觉这只是人工智能之类的东西对教育产生影响的开始。

And I’m just curious your thoughts on that as we all kind of walk blindly into the future a bit on it.

我只是好奇你对此有何想法，因为我们都有点盲目地走向未来。

And now I’m back to my call for more federal research around these things.

现在我再次呼吁联邦政府围绕这些事情进行更多研究。

We gotta understand it as we go.

我们必须边走边理解它。

Or we’re going to just accidentally walk into things.

或者我们会不小心走进一些东西。

I mean, these days, there’s a lot of litigation around the responsibility of social media and tech companies to what is happening to our kids.

我的意思是，现在有很多关于社交媒体和科技公司对我们孩子所发生的事情的责任的诉讼。

You know, we need research.

你知道，我们需要研究。

So, we covered a bit of how we can better support teachers, but are there other things on that front you want to add before we go on to the Department of Education and a whole host of other potential reforms?

因此，我们讨论了如何更好地支持教师的一些内容，但是在我们继续讨论教育部和其他一系列潜在的改革之前，您是否还想补充这方面的其他内容？

And one of the things that I despair about, we have not done a very good job of having our teacher colleges embrace what we know for sure about how teachers can be effective.

我感到失望的一件事是，我们没有很好地让我们的师范学院接受我们所确定的关于教师如何高效的知识。

Therefore, school districts and states often have to retool and reinvent kind of the raw product of a student coming out of college with a baccalaureate degree and a teaching certificate that isn’t fully armed with the best that we know and that’s most effective for kids.

因此，学区和州经常不得不重新装备和重新发明从大学毕业并获得学士学位和教学证书的学生的原始产品，而这些原始产品并没有完全配备我们所知道的最好的、对孩子来说最有效的东西。

So teachers colleges.

所以师范学院。

And and further, we need to make sure that we’re relying on, I think about half the states now have requirements to use the science of reading, what we know about how to teach little kids to read, and half do not.

此外，我们需要确保我们所依赖的，我认为现在有一半的州有使用阅读科学的要求，以及我们所知道的如何教小孩子阅读的知识，而一半则没有。

Look, we know that 90 cents on the dollar comes from states and localities in K-12.

看，我们知道 1 美元中的 90 美分来自 K-12 的州和地区。

That’s less true in post-secondary education.

在高等教育中情况并非如此。

But, you know, who has the gold makes the rules, all of that, I get that.

但是，你知道，谁拥有金牌就制定规则，所有这一切，我明白。

But there are some unique things that only a federal government can do.

但有一些独特的事情只有联邦政府才能做到。

The whole reason we have a federal Department of Education is because it came out of the Civil Rights era, that we believed, and I hope and I think we still do, that every American, irrespective of zip code or locality, should have the tools to access the American dream, and that starts with education.

我们拥有联邦教育部的全部原因是因为它诞生于民权时代，我们相信，我希望而且我认为我们仍然相信，每个美国人，无论邮政编码或地点如何，都应该拥有实现美国梦的工具，而这从教育开始。

So a civil rights opportunity, whatever you want to call it, kind of agenda, and the research and practice and tools, the data that can bring that to bear more broadly is a central part of the Department of Education.

因此，民权机会，无论你想怎么称呼它，议程的种类，以及研究、实践和工具，以及可以更广泛地发挥作用的数据，都是教育部的核心部分。

The Department of Education is also a gigantic bank.

教育部也是一家巨大的银行。

So, Pell Grants, student loans, all those sorts of things are a big part of the remit.

因此，佩尔助学金、学生贷款，所有这些都是该项目职责的重要组成部分。

And so we have to decide, do we think that, you know, federal financial support for post-secondary education is worthy or not?

因此，我们必须决定，我们认为联邦对专上教育的财政支持是否值得？

But those are the big, big functions of the U.S. Department of Education.

但这些都是美国教育部非常非常重要的职能。

And yet, at this point, I think we have the highest level of school choice that we’ve had and we’re still seeing scores slip and all this.

然而，在这一点上，我认为我们拥有有史以来最高水平的学校选择，但我们仍然看到分数下滑等等。

How do you think of school choice and in places like Texas, right, that’s playing out in having public money go to students who go to private education, but not all schools are accepting the vouchers, and it’s kind of entered this whole new era.

你如何看待择校问题？在德克萨斯州这样的地方，公共资金流向接受私立教育的学生，但并非所有学校都接受学券，这有点进入了一个全新的时代。

And again, it feels really controversial, all this.

再说一次，这一切感觉真的很有争议。

You know, maybe it’s always been, but I would just be curious your thought about how does the school choice, the public vouchers for private school, how does all of this fit into the landscape of the main thing about how do we improve student achievement scores at school?

你知道，也许一直都是这样，但我只是好奇你对学校选择、私立学校的公共学券如何看待，所有这些如何适应我们如何提高学生在学校的成绩分数这一主要问题？

Okay.

好的。

So there’s just a lot of mechanics that are involved in making for a successful choice program.

因此，成功的选择计划涉及很多机制。

I’m an advocate for choice, but I I worry that there’ll be a, “We tried that, it didn’t work,” because some of the design of the of the thing was not, you know, well enough reasoned.

我是选择的倡导者，但我担心会有这样的情况，“我们尝试过，但没有成功”，因为这个东西的一些设计，你知道，没有足够的理由。

Furthermore, if we’re gonna spend public money in service to and it resolved on public education, let’s find out how we’re doing.

此外，如果我们打算将公共资金用于公共教育并致力于公共教育，那么让我们看看我们做得如何。

And I’ve worried that some of these big programs at scale don’t have the kind of accountability, so we’re gonna, you know, send the money out and hope for the best, and maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t, but we won’t know.

我担心这些大规模的项目中的一些没有那种责任感，所以我们会，你知道，把钱寄出去，并希望得到最好的结果，也许它会起作用，也许不会，但我们不知道。

And then thirdly, I do think, especially in a place like Texas, you know, Friday Night Lights Texas, what does it mean when we don’t have the kind of cohesion that for good or ill we often have around the schoolhouse, whether it’s sports or athletics or the fall festival or the you name it, that everybody is out getting their own experience however they can.

第三，我确实认为，特别是在德克萨斯州这样的地方，你知道，德克萨斯州星期五之夜，当我们没有学校周围经常有的那种凝聚力时，无论是好是坏，无论是体育运动、田径运动、秋季节日还是其他你能想到的东西，每个人都在尽其所能地获得自己的经验，这意味着什么。

So, you know, there might be something pretty significant lost in the shuffle, I fear.

所以，我担心，在洗牌中可能会丢失一些相当重要的东西。

So, you know, time will tell.

所以，你知道，时间会证明一切。

We’re doing a big experiment.

我们正在做一个大实验。

And then the last thing I would say is I fear and I worry that what is begetting a lot of this energy is some of the cynicism and frustration that we talked about in the early part of this program.

我要说的最后一件事是，我担心，我担心产生大量这种能量的是我们在本计划的早期部分谈到的一些愤世嫉俗和沮丧。

“What the hell’s going on up there?

“上面到底发生了什么？

I’m not for it.

我不赞成。

It doesn’t work very well.

它效果不太好。

My kid can’t read.

我的孩子不能读书。

It’s not worth showing up for,” et cetera, et cetera.

这不值得出现，”等等，等等。

And so has that been part of this momentum around choice?

那么这是围绕选择的动力的一部分吗？

Seems like.

看起来像。

So how do we kind of think about value?

那么我们如何看待价值呢？

What are the things that that are needed in an in-person or cohesive, collegial kind of community place as opposed to knowledge that, you know, you can get right here?

在面对面的或有凝聚力的、学院式的社区场所中需要什么，而不是在这里可以获得的知识？

And second order, but it, you know, pretty important is that that place, that experience, that collective, that collegiality, whether it’s support for athletics, whether it is saying the Pledge of Allegiance, whether it is where you go to celebrate success as a community, whatever, that those things happen in in our schools and on our athletic fields and in our communities that are close to us, that you drive by every day.

第二个顺序，但是，你知道，非常重要的是那个地方，那种经历，那个集体，那种合作精神，无论是对体育运动的支持，无论是宣誓效忠，还是你去庆祝社区成功的地方，无论如何，这些事情发生在我们的学校、我们的运动场和我们附近的社区，你每天都会开车经过。

And so that is what we need to treasure and make because it’s a big part of our, our country and its greatness.

这就是我们需要珍惜和创造的东西，因为它是我们、我们的国家及其伟大的重要组成部分。

Again, who I, if I put on my cynical hat, could say like, We’ve seen that story of you have to do this to get that and the American dream, and look, we’ve done it, and we’re still on the same rung of the ladder we were to begin with.

再一次，如果我戴上愤世嫉俗的帽子，我可以说，我们已经看到了你必须这样做才能实现美国梦的故事，看，我们已经做到了，而且我们仍然处于我们开始时的同一梯级上。

How do you push back against kind of an earned skepticism in some ways, or at least seeing it play out in other areas and assuming then that’s also the case for K through 12 and so I’m not gonna ride my kid to go or whatever.

你如何在某些方面抵制这种应得的怀疑，或者至少看到它在其他领域发挥作用，并假设从 K 到 12 也是如此，所以我不会骑着我的孩子去或其他什么。

But in post-secondary education, they’ve always had, and up till, you know, pretty recent days, kind of a “send us the money and leave us alone.” And so the the disruption that is happening there is overdue, probably in no small part is deserved, I mean, and and expensive.

但在高等教育中，他们一直有这样的做法，直到最近，你知道，有点“给我们钱，别打扰我们”。因此，那里正在发生的破坏早就该发生了，我的意思是，在很大程度上可能是应得的，而且代价高昂。

I mean, people are asking the right questions, and I don’t want to be an I-told-you-so, but a big part of my tenure as the Secretary of Education, we can have another show, was the creation of this Commission on the Future of Higher Education, which became the Spellings Commission, that was all about what’s going on up there?

我的意思是，人们提出了正确的问题，我不想成为一个“我告诉过你了”的人，但我作为教育部长的任期的很大一部分，我们可以有另一个节目，是成立了高等教育未来委员会，后来成为拼写委员会，这都是关于那里发生的事情？

What about price?

价格怎么样？

What about accountability?

问责制又如何？

All these sorts of things that are now coming home to roost, so.

所有这些事情现在都将得到应有的回报，所以。

But just before we get to those, just really quick to, on that thread of accountability in higher education, and, I think K through 12 has had more accountability, but right now, we don’t exactly know.

但就在我们讨论这些之前，请快速讨论一下高等教育中的问责制，我认为从幼儿园到 12 年级都有更多的问责制，但现在我们还不知道。

We have these tests, NAEP, but are they around graduation level?

我们有这些测试，NAEP，但它们大约是毕业水平吗？

Do we know kind of when kids are leaving the K through 12 system where they’re at, like how they, how they are performing academically, and of course, a lot of kids don’t even finish at all.

我们是否知道孩子们何时离开 K 到 12 系统，比如他们的表现如何，他们的学业表现如何，当然，很多孩子甚至根本没有完成学业。

So far, my understanding is, and they haven’t named them, but five states have have elected to participate in 12th grade NAEP.

到目前为止，我的理解是，他们还没有点名，但有五个州已经选择参加 12 年级 NAEP。

That will tell us a whole lot.

这会告诉我们很多事情。