Calling the current set of laws “demoralizing” and “desensitizing,” Duncan excoriated Congress for keeping a “law on the books that impedes progress.” With federal legislators in recess, the likelihood is low lawmakers will reauthorize NCLB — something that was supposed to have happened in 2007.

“This should be bipartisan; it’s the right thing to do for the Congress,” Duncan said during a White House briefing. The secretary singled out the House for the slowdown in negotiations over how best to tweak the accountability measures of the national education law.

At a separate press event Monday, Duncan talked of a process that moves away from the punitive sting of NCLB, a law he accuses of distorting the good progress of schools with its one-size-fits-all approach to assessing K-12 performance.

Pushed for specifics by reporters, he said the current education policy framework is “scared to reward excellence.” Though the current waiver process would include no additional costs, Duncan stressed new approaches for incentivizing creative educators and upping the starting pay of teachers. In July, the secretary said he’d like to move teacher salaries to a minimum of $60,000 all the way up to $150,000.

Duncan said the current regulatory framework focuses too heavily on cut-scores, or levels of proficiency when it should rate progress. He pointed to Tennessee, a state that he says set a very low bar on student accountability and listed 91 percent of its pupils as being proficient in math. After the state upped its standards, that figure dropped to 34 percent. Punishing Tennessee just on the numbers is an example of the “federal law that’s an impediment … to the great works teachers are doing.” The secretary also indicated states that adopt The Common Core State Standards Initiative, a college- and career-focused curriculum that has been adopted voluntarily by 44 states according to Duncan, would be moving in the right direction.

States that refuse to adopt the reforms required to accept the waivers will continue to be judged by NLCB standards.

While Democrats in the House and Senate have come to support a waiver process that sidesteps Congress, some Republicans who are involved in education policy are nonplussed.

Joe Kasper, spokesperson for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) wrote to TAI in an email:

The idea that waivers might be used to circumvent Congress doesn’t sit well, especially if the waivers are used to create an even heavier top-down approach than what’s already in place. And we need to understand the full intent behind the waivers. After this long without a reauthorization, it’s more important that we get things right than rush to put something together or risk doing more of the same when we know what works and what doesn’t.

In the White House briefing, Duncan said he hopes the executive order to move along with the waivers will compel Congress to write a new set of national education policies soon.

To the chair of the subcommittee Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), “charter schools empower parents to play a more active role in their child’s education, and offer students a priceless opportunity to escape underperforming schools. These innovative institutions also open doors for teachers to experiment with fresh teaching methods and curricula that they believe will have the greatest positive impact on students in their individual community.”

However, Western Michigan University’s Dr. Gary Miron, who advocated for charter schools in the mid-1990s, explained the success of those early models are much harder to emulate today given the top-down regulations public and charter schools must comply with as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Nor are charter schools necessarily an improvement on traditional public schools: A Stanford University study that found for every 17 charters that perform better than public schools, 37 charters do worse.

Dr. Miron also cautioned against regarding charter schools as laboratories of experimentation: “Involvement of local persons or groups in starting charter schools is shrinking, replaced instead by outsiders, particularly private education management organizations (EMOs), which steer these schools from distant corporate headquarters. Claims that EMOs can make charter schools more effective have not been substantiated by research.”

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) pressed Dr. Miron to clarify the degree of choice charter schools afford in a community. Dr. Miron admitted parents with greater “aspirations” for their children and with a higher education attainment level are more likely to seek out education alternatives for their children. He also stated two-parent households are more likely to put in the time and research to compare available schools and education programs in the community, referring to an OECD study (PDF) that found similar results.

Continuing on the subject of choice, Dr. Miron explained many charter schools receive public money to offer transportation to the student body, yet can still keep the tax dollars if they select to direct those funds to different expenses.

Debbie Beyer, executive director of Literacy First Charter Schools near San Diego described (PDF) the twenty-year movement as “not the panacea to all the ills of public education, and not all charters are doing a bang up job. But they are an incredible option for families that are becoming acute consumers of public education.” She also highlighted the difficulty of securing accreditation, and alleged charter schools receive more scrutiny than public schools. She said her team had to explain a two-point drop in reading levels even though her school was one of the county leaders in test results despite those English Language scores.

To Beyer, public education should not be bound to any one institution, saying, “Literacy First “[serves] at the pleasure of the taxpaper.” Unlike traditional public schools with collective bargaining agreements between the district and educators, her teachers do not receive tenure. They are, however, given pay incentives for pursuing experiments that yield positive results, a model the president and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan would like public schools  to follow.

Rep. Hunter released a press release following the hearing that omitted mention of Miron. He was the only education scholar witness. The other three professionals mentioned in the press release were either administrators or executives of charter school-related groups.

Not to be outdone, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), who chaired the entire House Education and Labor Committee between 2007 and 2011 and has called himself a supporter of charter schools, released a press statement that made mention of only Miron.

The San Diego Union-Tribune:

Hunter, a Marine combat veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, is calling the legislation the Restore Military Readiness Act.

“The idea behind the Restore Military Readiness Act is not necessarily to prevent the implementation of the DADT repeal, but rather to ensure that military readiness and combat effectiveness are not adversely impacted,” Hunter said in a statement.

“Given that the service chiefs carry most of the day-to-day responsibilities for each service branch, their independent certification is just as important and equally necessary.”

The current law requires the president, the secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sign off on the repeal.

A new Government Accountability Office report says the military spent over $193 million between 2004 and 2009 to replace around 3,660 troops. A Palm Center study in 2006 reported $363.8 million was spent by the military in the policy’s first ten years.

It’s worth noting that though Gen. James Amos — a Marine Corps Commandant — opposed the repeal, he said he would implement it anyway if Congress passed a law.

Cosponsors of the legislation include:

Rep Bartlett, Roscoe G. [MD-6]
Rep Bilbray, Brian P. [CA-50]
Rep Chaffetz, Jason [UT-3]
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11]
Rep Davis, Geoff [KY-4]
Rep Fleming, John [LA-4]
Rep Franks, Trent [AZ-2]
Rep Gibbs, Bob [OH-18]
Rep Gingrey, Phil [GA-11]
Rep Huelskamp, Tim [KS-1]
Rep Kline, John [MN-2]
Rep Lamborn, Doug [CO-5]
Rep Luetkemeyer, Blaine [MO-9]
Rep Manzullo, Donald A. [IL-16]
Rep Miller, Jeff [FL-1]
Rep Pearce, Stevan [NM-2]
Rep Rogers, Mike D. [AL-3]
Rep West, Allen B. [FL-22]

Update, 4:51 p.m. EST: The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a national, legal services and policy organization committed to repealing DADT, released a statement today about the new GAO report.

“Today’s GAO report underscores that the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law not only deprives the military of the qualified Americans it needs, but has also been a huge waste of taxpayer dollars on replacing patriots lost under this discriminatory law,” said Aubrey Sarvis, Army veteran and executive director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “These numbers remind us why it’s time to move forward on certification so we can begin implementing repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and make a smooth transition to open service.”

Candidates for the RNC chairmanship held a debate on Monday. (David Weigel)

Chip Saltsman has put the “magic negro” story behind him. The news that the ex-Mike Huckabee campaign manager and candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee had sent RNC members a CD of parody songs that included “Barack the Magic Negro” lit up the political press during the slow Christmas week.

But the aftermath of those first frenzied days was not so hard on Saltsman. According to the Politico’s Andy Barr, RNC members were angry at the media for exploiting the story, and some of them considered supporting him because of it. “I would say that’s about right,” Saltsman told The Washington Independent, confirming the Politico’s take.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Monday’s debate between Saltsman and the five other candidates for RNC chair — including Mike Duncan, the incumbent chairman crushed under the Obama wave — provided yet more evidence that the obsessions of the “MSM” will have nothing to say about who leads the opposition party. Ken Blackwell, the black RNC chairman contender from Ohio, trumpeted his support of Saltsman during the “magic negro” flap on a leaflet handed out to reporters and spectators. You couldn’t find a better example of the Republican Party’s internal wisdom about what its political problems are right now, or what it needs to do to correct them. According to all but one candidate for the job, the GOP’s fortunes will reverse just as soon as it gets better at messaging and networking with activists. Fix that and they’ve fixed the party.

The debate — the first televised RNC slugfest ever, organizer and moderator Grover Norquist crowed — provided plenty of flashbacks to the debates of the 2007-2008 Republican presidential primaries. George W. Bush was only mentioned when Norquist brought him up. Chances to critique the party were judo-flipped into chances to attack the Democrats, who, in power, were sure to cause a voter backlash.

“The Obama administration has promised tremendous increasing in spending,” said Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis, “which they’re either going to pay for with higher taxes or higher deficits. That’s going to create tremendous opportunities for us as a party and as a movement.”

Mike Duncan, the incumbent who won the job two years ago, made everyone understand why he’d initially had to share the role with Florida Sen. Mel Martinez (R) — he spoke as if a sudden burst of charisma could poison him. “We’ve got to get our candidates using the technology,” Duncan said, explaining how the RNC already had the tools and the philosophy it needed to win. “We did that in Georgia for Saxby Chambliss,” he said. “We sent 79 million ad impressions to 600,000 Republicans.” According to Duncan, the GOP only lost in 2008 because of the Bush-damaged brand and tricks by wily Democratic technocrats. “We won the election on Election Day, 2008,” he explained in a glossy handbook (“Leadership You Can Trust”) handed out in the audience. “Early voting, however, resulted in our defeat.”

Blackwell, leaning back in his chair and speaking slowly, was as grim and confident. “When Ken Blackwell speaks,” commented American Spectator managing editor J.P. Freire, “I feel like I’m in trouble for something.” Blackwell framed the GOP’s problems as those of an ossified organization unable to reap the benefits of its good ideas.

“We have to reinvigorate the base and push our resources back to state and county parties,” Blackwell said. “It is only when you decentralize power that you get serious accountability at the local level.” He suggested a “40 under 40 strategy” that would make sure four out of 10 local GOP officials were still looking down the road at middle age.

Saul Anuzis — by one measure the frontrunner for chairmanship, with 12 public commitments from RNC members — used the word “network” as often as Blackwell invoked the name of Ronald Reagan. “It’s nice to talk about technology,” said Anuzis, “but we need to make this part of everything we do.” When Norquist got around to asking the candidates whether they used Twitter, the gleam in Anuzis’s eyes could be seen from the Mall — he has more than 4,000 Facebook friends and nearly 3,000 followers on Twitter, where he types whatever’s on his mind and preaches the gospel of high-tech outreach. At a post-debate reception, Anuzis kept tweeting: “Ken Blackwell seemed to be very proud he had more Facebook friends than me…send more my way :)”.

Saltsman picked up the high-tech banner and flew it high. “The magic of the Obama campaign,” he argued, “was that they had open box solutions that their supporters could use to work better in the communities, with their voters.” Katon Dawson pledged to run more candidates and to talk to more members of minority groups, such as the Hispanics who abandoned the party in 2008. “We are more consistent with that community,” said Dawson, “with their family values and the school choice. But did they listen to us in the last election cycle?”

When Republican consultant Patrick Ruffini asked what issues could galvanize the Republican base, the candidates were back in their comfort zones. Republicans, said Duncan, could oppose the “billion-dollar gamble” that President-elect Obama thinks will stimulate the economy. And Duncan was “willing to put resources in immediately to strike down any attempt to bring back the fairness doctrine in this country.” Saltsman expected the Obama administration to “give us a gift of an overreaching, overpowering government that will limit our freedoms” and, in turn, make more voters into Republicans.

The lone RNC candidate who used the forum to critique the party, not just its messaging, was Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and current chair of GOPAC. He entered the race nine days after Sen. John McCain’s defeat, announcing on the friendly turf of Hannity and Colmes. Conservative activists were thrilled. But Steele is running behind the pack in public commitments from RNC members, although Steele campaign aide Kevin Igoe chalked that up to “a different strategy” of not trumpeting every new endorsement.

“I represent a threat to the system,” Steele explained after the debate. “I want to change it bottom up to top down.”

But Steele’s criticisms of the party have not helped him among conservative activists and RNC members who don’t thrill at being told what they’ve done wrong. “He looks like he knows he’s losing,” whispered one conservative blogger who’d been reading Steele’s body language.

It’s a strange situation for Steele, whom activists consider one of the most charismatic figures in the party, regularly requested to stump for Republicans in close races. The problem is that “change” he’s talking about. While his five rivals for the RNC post discussed the party’s failures in terms of messaging, of technological gaps, and of poor outreach, Steele would launch into existential questions about what the party stood for, who it talked to, and who it had alienated.

“We can Twitter, we can YouTube all you want to,” Steele said, answering a question about reaching out to young voters, “but we need to put young people in the game and let them play. Not just sticking them on committees and rolling them out to see ‘Gee, look who we got,’ like we do with black folks and a whole lot of other folks.”

The not-so-secret truth that’s hurt Steele, and reportedly helped Saltsman, is that Republicans don’t want (or believe they need) a candidate who’ll bring change as dramatic as their 2006 and 2008 election losses. Why do that if the Democrats will overreach and anger voters anyway? After the debate, Steele could be heard grousing about “this ideological stuff” that opponents were using against him — specifically, the claim that he’s soft on abortion and his association with the Republican Leadership Council proves that. A just-for-fun lightning round question about the candidates’ firearms proved, again, how hard Steele’s task would be if the party was looking for cultural validation from its next chief.

“Four handguns and two rifles,” said Duncan.

“Too many to count,” said Dawson.

“Seven,” said Blackwell. “And I’m good.”

“Two,” said Anuzis, “but they wouldn’t let me carry them in Washington, D.C.”

“In my closet at home,” said Saltsman, “I’ve got two 12-gauges, a 20-gauge, three handguns, and a 30.6. And I’ll take you on any time, Ken.”

“None,” said Steele.