The Education Problem You Want to Have and the Problem You Don't

Arne Duncan is going to be a unique figure in Washington: a secretary of education with money to spend.

The new stimulus package allocates more than $100 billion in aid for public schools around the country, including $40 billion in "stabilization" money to prevent layoffs at cash-strapped school systems. But there will also be funds for expanded college aid and school construction. The New York Times reports that one of the biggest issues for the perennially cash-strapped department is figuring out how to spend the money.

Now, as every boss is wont to say at some point, "that's the kind of problem you want to have." One thing that Washington may want to keep in mind, however, is that we've found very different assumptions between federal and local officials, and between local leaders and teachers, about how much change the public schools need. Even when they see the same problems, they often strive for different solutions.

In Public Agenda's Reality Check surveys, we found major disconnects between the priorities of national policymakers versus those of local school leaders on issues like teacher quality, standards and the need to ramp up science and math coursework. While national leaders have raised the alarm about math and science education, 66 percent of principals and 59 percent of superintendents say this is either not a serious problem or not a problem at all in their district. More than half of the nation's school superintendents considered local schools to be "excellent." And while six in 10 teachers say it's a serious problem that "too many students get passed through the system without learning," only 27 percent of superintendents say the same.

So there may be real perception gaps between federal education leaders giving out the money, the local school officials who would get it, and the teachers who would actually use the new resources in the classroom. And that's the kind of problem you don't want to have, because that can trip you up in crafting programs that actually make a difference in students' lives.