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If you ask George Wood, the federal role in public education is out of whack. His concern: The feds have meddled with teaching and learning--not exactly their strong suit--and forgotten their traditional role as guarantors of education equity.

As executive director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, Wood has been working with leading education luminaries to call for changes to the federal role. The fruits of this work appear in the Forum's report, Democracy at Risk, which offers recommendations for more constructive federal involvement in public schools.

Wood, who is principal of the ironically named "Federal Hocking High School" in rural Ohio, recently spoke with us about some of these recommendations. (These recommendations resemble the recommendations LFA offers in its own recent report on the federal role in public education.)

Download the entire interview here or listen to about six minutes of interview highlights:

A transcript of these highlights appears below.

Alternatively, you can download the following interview excerpts:

• Reshaping the Federal Role in Education: Rediscovering a Commitment to Equity (3:23)
• Creating Out-of-School Supports for Academic Achievement (3:34)
• Federal "Marshall Plan" for Teachers and School leaders (4:28)
• Our Next Moonshot: World Class Assessments (2:49)
• Finding the Right Funding Priorities in Lean Years (2:16)
• Final Thoughts: Reasserting the Fundamental Goals of Education (1:09)

Transcript of Interview Highlights
PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Do you think the federal government has exercised an appropriate amount of influence over K-12 education?

WOOD: Recently, I would argue, it has tried to do what the federal government is sort of uniquely unsuited to do, which is manage teaching and learning. It has avoided its historical and more important and perhaps legitimate roles of looking at issues of equity, child welfare, and teacher supply.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: In your report, "Democracy at Risk," you mention that the federal government should pay off the "education debt." What exactly do you mean by that?

WOOD: A lot of people talk about an achievement gap. What we've argued is it's an educational debt, actually. I would hope that as we begin to rethink federal engagement in public education, item one would be: "Why do we allow our schools to be so inequitably funded, and why do we allow our children to have such inequitable childhoods?"

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: In your report, you mention that schools should be gateways to social services for students, [such as] health care and other [services] that have been so inequitable. Others have argued that this might actually represent a lack of commitment to academic success in schools.

WOOD: After 17 years as a school principal, I just spent this past week trying to get the water turned back on in a house for one of my [students]. I dealt with two of our children, whose father had to come to school and tell them their mother had died unexpectedly. I had a child last week who [became] homeless, and I have a number of kids who don't have glasses or health care.

Every one of those conditions affects academic performance. Every single one of them. We're missing an incredible opportunity to bring together both educational and social services in the name of academic achievement.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: You mention in the report the possibility of something called a "Marshall Plan" for teachers and school leaders. Could you explain this?

WOOD: Our idea is that [the federal government] could invest in high-quality training, especially in urban areas. We could invest in scholarships and loans for people who want to go into education. We could invest in high-quality, job-embedded teacher development work. We could invest in master teacher programs. We could invest in teacher mentoring and principal mentoring. And we could do that for thousands of teachers. We could develop enough teacher power to fill all the slots that are being filled by uncertified and unlicensed teachers for less than the cost of the war in Iraq in a week.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Given the fact that very often the most experienced teachers and the most highly credentialed teachers are not necessarily in the schools that need them the most, how do you see a federal effort like this actually having an impact on that problem?

WOOD: One of the things the national government's about is protecting the rights of groups of people around the country. The right of children to have a high-quality education regardless of where they're raised is a right that's being violated because districts can't afford to pay or keep some of the highest quality teachers. So I think you could incentivize, through federal dollars--through loan forgiveness, stipends, et cetera. So that's one part.

The other part is the federal government could get involved with really seeding and supporting high-quality teacher preparation programs that prepare teachers for urban areas that are sometimes more challenging and for rural areas that are often underserved.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: To shift gears a little bit, you've also talked about the importance of education research and innovation, and that the federal government has a role to play here, too. Could you elaborate?

WOOD: One of the things we think is: what do we know about those nations that are doing well in international comparisons? They don't test kids the way we test kids. They use performance assessments--high-quality performance assessments--that are usually administered at point of instruction in the schools. They're done in ways that are reliable and valid across a number of settings.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: It's interesting because very recently, as you may be aware, the education advisors to Senators Obama and McCain had a bit of a debate on the performance assessment question. There was concern that we didn't have any good models for valid and reliable performance assessment.

WOOD: We do have them; they're all over the place. We've just decided not to really invest in them. Again, this is a great national research endeavor, right? Because the federal government has the funds and the energy to look at this kind of big-scale research. It'd be kind of a John Kennedy moment. The next president could say, "We're going to have quality performance assessments for every kid in this country within 36 months." This is America. We can do that stuff.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: As you talk about the kinds of federal investments that could make these changes work, do you think it's a feasible discussion these days, given the kinds of challenges we face?

WOOD: I think it's going to take a reallocation of resources. In the state of Ohio, we are currently spending $95 million a year--$95 million a year--on a standardized testing program to respond to the demands of No Child Left Behind. All you would have to do in this state, tomorrow, is reduce by just half the tests kids have to take. You've suddenly freed up 45, almost $50 million that you could invest in really looking at a different type of assessment. And that's just one state.

Go to the federal level, and the amount of time and energy they spend in micromanaging and managing the states rather than being partners with the states on these sorts of things. And [by] redirecting resources, [it] could be done.

What the Forum is pushing for, and what I believe a number of organizations are pushing for, is to really take seriously education as a civil right. And to look at what would it mean to have a public education system where every child graduates fully prepared to be a citizen of this great democracy and to be able to be gainfully employed in the changing economy. We believe that will happen through paying attention to issues of equity, teacher supply, meaningful assessments, and research.