How did I miss this?

That was my reaction last Wednesday morning when I stumbled across a blog post by 2009 National Teacher of the Year (NTOY) Anthony Mullen entitled, “Teachers Should be Seen and Not Heard.” I’d been contemplating the state of education in Iowa as our governor and statehouse Republicans hold education funding (called allowable growth) hostage in an effort to fast-track Governor Branstad’s education reform plan. Mullen’s post, though old, describes what’s wrong with education reform efforts across the nation.

Prior to the NTOY honor, Mullen, a former New York City police officer, taught at an alternative high school in Connecticut, where he worked with students one step away from dropping out. As National Teacher of the Year, Mullen spent a year travelling the country and speaking to educators and reformers about this country’s high dropout rate. Mullen blogged about his experiences.

In his January 2010 post, Mullen describes participating in a small group meeting about education. Around the table with Mullen were three governors, one state senator, a Harvard professor/author and a moderator.

Mullen, who described himself as a “fly on the wall,” recounted the conversation around the table as the politicians and professor expressed their opinions. The politicians swapped comments about the quality of teachers, the need for accountability and the supposed benefits of running a school like a business. The Harvard professor contributed a mini-lesson about chaos theory in education.

Eventually the discussion anticipated teacherless classrooms, in which technology replaces teachers and schools.

Mullen narrated his thoughts as he listened to these ideas from people whose last experience in a K-12 classroom was their final year in high school. People, I’d add, whose own kids were probably grown and out of the house.

Finally, the senator asked Mullen, “What do you think?”

So Mullen shared his thoughts about the health care debate and wondered if he could sit on a panel to create a core curriculum of medical procedures to be used in emergency rooms. Suddenly he had everyone’s attention.

Mullen continued that he knows he’s unqualified for such a role as he’s not a doctor, never worked in an emergency room, nor treated a patient, but so what? “Today I have listened to people who are not teachers, have never worked in a classroom, and have never taught a single student tell me how to teach,” he concluded.

That’s the trouble with education reform – it’s being driven by people who know nothing about teaching. Meanwhile in Iowa, the resources our children and their schools need to continue their work is being held hostage while amateurs argue about reform.

By law (one signed by Governor Branstad during his first round as governor), the Iowa Legislature must pass school funding within the first 30 days of the session to allow schools to plan, certify their budgets and issue contracts. But for the last two years, he and statehouse Republicans have held school funding hostage in an effort to pass his education reform package.

What’s the hurry? Legislators’ job is to publicly and thoroughly examine and debate new policies. It is also to tax and spend for the common good. And first and foremost, it is to uphold state law.

Pass allowable growth for our children and schools. Then look at education reform, building it on the input of the experts and stakeholders – teachers, parents and students.

If we cut spending, what gets fixed?

While working his first job out of graduate school in Texas, my husband came home with a story about a co-worker at the sheltered workshop where he was employed. This young man had married his high school sweetheart, and they’d recently had their first child. They were very traditional – while Tom was working, his wife focused on the home and child. Even back then, living on a single salary was a challenge.

Unfortunately for Tom, his wife’s parents had never placed any emphasis on her learning to manage money. He soon discovered while she knew how to spend it, she had no idea when the bills came, she and Tom were obligated to pay them. Instead, she thought if she threw them in the garbage, they would go away.

Needless to say, they didn’t. And by the time, Tom discovered what was happening, they had a serious problem. The marriage didn’t survive it either.

I was reminded of this young couple reading a New York Times piece by David Bornstein entitled, “When Paying It Forward Pays Us Back.” Bornstein writes: “But while it’s easy for budget hawks to call for the axe, we have to remember that cutting a program doesn’t make the problem go away. We’ll still have people who are unemployed, unskilled, aging, chronically ill, disabled, living in substandard housing and so forth. In many cases, their problems, if ignored, will become more costly for society over time.”

I’d add calling for more personal responsibility doesn’t make these problems disappear either.

But solutions are out there. Bornstein’s article focuses on the transitional care model (TCM) and its potential to cut Medicare costs for a projected savings of up to $10 billion per year – without cutting benefits. Transitional care saves money by preventing return visits to the hospital through home visits by specially trained nurses. According to the Coalition for Evidence-based Policy, multiple studies of TCM support its potential to not only save money, but effectively care for our seniors.

And the latter is what gets lost when policy matters are reduced to the budget. As a society, we’re too quick to evaluate programs and people based on numbers like a dollar amount or a test score — without looking at more qualitative measures. We want a simple or easy reference.

But people are not numbers. We remember that when it’s personal, but not when we’re talking about policy. Special interest groups have used this tendency to promote policies that have us fighting over crumbs instead of calling for policies that care for people.

As Congress gears up for the next round of budget debates, I encourage everyone to do their homework. Take a look at Bornstein’s article and the work of the Coalition for Evidence-based Policy. Ask yourself what outcomes you want your government to help provide instead of focusing solely on the costs.

Because if all we do is cut spending, nothing will get fixed.