Wall Street Journal - Obama’s School Reform Policies are a Priority

In the days following his inauguration, President Obama included a package of educational reforms in his stimulus bill that offered states financial incentives to make dramatic improvements in their education systems. About 10% of the $100 billion allocated for education was used to create competitive grants. States could only win them by drafting comprehensive and aggressive plans to, for example, adopt higher academic standards, turn around chronically low-performing schools, and redesign teacher evaluation and compensation systems.

Although it has received much less attention than health care and financial regulatory reform, this measure may ultimately be one of Mr. Obama's most profound and lasting achievements. In just one year, we've already seen more reforms proposed and enacted around the country than in the preceding decade.

Yet on July 1, with little warning, the House of Representatives watered down these reform efforts by approving an amendment to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, proposed by Rep. David Obey (D., Wis.). It takes away $800 million that has already been committed to three critical parts of the president's education reform package—Race to the Top, the Teacher Incentive Fund, and the Charter Schools Program. This breaks a promise to the states, districts and schools that are doing the most important work in America. The funds are to be redirected to a $10 billion "Edujobs" bill to prevent teacher layoffs.

We fully support the goal of saving teachers' jobs, but this is not the way to do it. No one is more committed to high-quality public education than our teachers. But without reform, they will be trapped in a system that has long been frustrating their best efforts, and failing our children.

According to a 2009 Alliance for Excellent Education report, barely half of all African-American and Latino students graduate from high school today, compared to over three-quarters of their white counterparts. A study last year from McKinsey concludes that the average student eligible for free or reduced-fee lunch is approximately two years of learning behind the average student who doesn't need such assistance.

These numbers are simply not acceptable. We must recognize that our system of public education is broken, and has been for some time. While it is underserving all of our students, it is most starkly failing low-income and minority students—the very children who depend on it the most. Without reform, we will be consigning another generation to poor education and second-class life options.

It is precisely such problems Mr. Obama's reforms are meant to address.

Last month, more than three dozen states submitted substantial reform proposals to the federal government, in hopes of receiving the funding they will need to implement them. Unfortunately, if Mr. Obey's amendment is confirmed by the Senate, at least four states poised to enact reforms will lose their chance to secure the necessary funding.

States that have spent a year planning for major changes and are now likely to see their plans derailed include New York, Maryland, Louisiana, Illinois, Colorado and California. The promise of the last year will be lost, and the system will just keep sputtering along as it has been, year after dispiriting year.

A growing coalition of advocates for equity and excellence— including education and civil rights groups and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle—have united to oppose these cuts. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have offered to work with Mr. Obey to find other ways of funding the Edujobs bill.

But unless and until they find a solution together, the Senate should reject the Obey amendment. The choice it proposes—between a reformed educational system and preservation of teachers' jobs—is a fundamentally misguided one. Our students need and deserve both.

Mr. Klein is chancellor of New York City schools. Mr. Lomax is president and chief executive of the United Negro College Fund. Ms. Murguía is president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza. They are co-chairs of the Board of the Education Equality Project.

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