Edin08 Blogger Summit – Roy Romer on Standards

Gov. Roy Romer just opened the conference. Gov. Romer was the 39th Governor of Colorado and served as the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2001 to 2006.

He talked about how education is not a focus on the campaign, and on the sad state of American education in comparison to other countries. He described steps that he found success with in his education administration career: changing expectations—that all children can learn; setting standards, subject by subject; rigorous curricula; training and retraining teachers; and diagnostic testing every 90 days.

He noted that politicians are afraid of stepping into education because it’s seen as a states’ rights issue. But he suggested that the next President ask 15 states to come up with standards benchmarked to the 10 highest performing nations in the world. The President will then find funds, pay for administration of tests, and arrange an exception under NCLB for additional time for some states to implement these standards.

(Check out the post before this to see the Summit agenda.)