An Interview with Vermont Commissioner of Education Ray McNulty

Hi, I'm Kathleen Burke, Director of ASCD's Annual Conference. Welcome to ASCD's Annual Conference Online 2003.

We are pleased to present a series of online programs that will preview topics and highlights of the 2003 Annual Conference. Joining us now is Ray McNulty, Vermont's Commissioner of Education.

Ray, what do you feel are the major issues influencing educators today?

I think this environment that we’re in now has many things that educators are being faced with today. I think of particular importance, an issue that’s influencing decisions that are made all around at least the United States right now, is the “No Child Left Behind Act.” That new federal law really has shifted what has been a state responsibility here in United States education to the federal government playing a significant role in how education is conducted in each state and in each classroom. So I think that’s a major issue that’s affecting at least educators in the United States.

I think on a more international level, one of the most important issues that educators face is the issue of educator quality. And there been I think a real shift in our thinking about teachers, particularly teachers in particular fields, math, science — we’re just not getting the quality of educators that we need across the country. And particularly in Vermont, we’ve been struggling with not just how we attract quality individuals, but how do we, once we have an educator, how do we raise their quality in our system. By that I mean basically here in Vermont at least we’ve taken the approach that we’re about creating the best teachers, and by that talking about mentoring programs, how to establish mentoring programs, how to impact support for classroom teachers. And that’s a major issue, because people see teachers in the classroom as, that interaction, as being critical, and what we know is that it’s also professional development outside of the classroom that’s critical and the general public doesn’t see that. And so a major issue facing us in education is that piece right there, trying to get the public to understand that teachers need further training, they need mentorships, they need internships, and that’s how we retain and keep our finest quality teachers.

What do you plan to share with participants at the ASCD Annual Conference?

I’ll be sharing in the presentation with Tom Hoolihan of the Chief State School Offices a session entitled “The No Child Left Behind Act: Challenges and Opportunities for Districts and Schools.” And the focus of this particular session will be on sharing how the particular federal law can be used to enhance education at the district and school level and what some of the challenges are. So we’ll be going through that. Clearly there have been, there’s been a lot of critics out there, and actually here in Vermont we’re part of that group that are critical of many pieces of the law. But the law is the law, and it is very well intended. Nobody, I don’t believe anybody can stand out there and say the intent of this law is inappropriate.

Despite all of that, I think at the session my role will be to share several different ways of looking at this law. And looking at the law for how it can impact quality educators, how it can help us to enhance our schools with quality educators, how it can address some of the needs of our underserved children. Also, to talk a bit about the differences that exist between our states, and one of the problems with this particular law, from my perspective, is that it talks about federal, it’s a federal law, but it allows each state to determine its own standards. So there are 50 different standards out there here in the United States. We’ve seen, from some of the early publications, where some states are identifying 1,500-2,000 schools, some states were identifying none. We know somewhere in the middle there is a reasonable approach to this law, and I think the work that I’ll be doing at that session, along with Tom Hoolihan from the Chief State School Office, will be let’s take a look at this law and let’s apply some practical knowledge. In addition, both Tom and I will be encouraging participants to share their views and some of their approaches so that we can get as many of the ASCD conference attendees engaged in the conversation about how best to proceed with this new federal law.

In your new position as Vermont’s Commissioner of Education, what do you feel is your most challenging opportunity that you face?

I think one of the most challenging opportunities I face currently in education is, it’s actually on two levels and they’re a little bit different. The first is a phenomenon that I think is very challenging for us and that is that, as educators, we seem to talk a lot about change, but we’re not very good at dealing with change. And by that I don’t think we as educators build enough change opportunity into our systems. We seem to launch an initiative and believe at times that this initiative will live on forever when, in fact, we know that change is a very steady constant force in our systems. And we seem to have a reaction, and traditionally educators have a reaction, to something new coming in and they begin immediately to say, you know, please we don’t need anything new, when our children in the classrooms are going to face a more rapidly changing life ahead of them than we’ve experienced. So that the challenge that I face is to create a climate in our schools where we encourage and embrace with our children the energy that change produces for us. And that we don’t become change-resistant. That we encourage our children to understand change and deal with change in a more positive way. I think in education, we’ve not been good at that. And that’s a significant change, that’s one major piece I think that is a challenging opportunity that we have.

The other is something I think that I’ve been calling it’s time for us in education to basically do an about-face, and I’m talking about particularly our K-12 systems. For many years we keep focusing on the 12th grade and when our students leave, what colleges they’re going to, what connections are with the workforce, what connections to the military, how do we get our kids better connected to the outside world. I think it’s time for us to do an about-face. And really by that I mean we have not done a good job as public schools from our kindergartens down, working with early childcare and education providers in our communities, engaging those people with what our curriculum is about, inviting them to training, and building a stronger transition from that early childcare and education to our schools. Because the research is quite profound about the effects of quality childcare and early education, and I think we’ve built so many remediation programs in our schools, but there is a great difference when those children arrive in kindergarten.

Quality early child education providers know in that kindergarten classroom in about an hour, they can tell you the children that have had quality childcare and education early on and those that haven’t. And our systems are not doing a good job of connecting with that early childcare part of education, which is really, from the brain research, the most important part. So I think that’s a great opportunity. We need to get schools and communities thinking that it’s not childcare. Quality childcare is early education and we need to make the systems align and work in a more effective way at that point.

Thank you, Ray, and thanks to our Internet audience for tuning in to one of a series of online programs previewing ASCD's 2003 Annual Conference in San Francisco.

Check back this time next week when we will post another interview with an Annual Conference invited speaker.

Before you leave this site, take a few minutes to visit the ASCD Annual Conference web page for the latest conference updates. I'm Kathleen Burke.