Heidi Alexander: “Ms. Holton started out in a very prominent Republican family in Virginia, and she ended up in a very prominent…”

“Ms. Holton started out in a very prominent Republican family in Virginia, and she ended up in a very prominent Democratic family in Virginia. But as she points out in her remarks, their work in education is bipartisan. She makes the point about how much progress Virginia has made in terms of goals, standards, accountability, and testing. It is very impressive, and most States can say the same. What has happened in the last 15 years is that Governors, school leaders, educators, and parents have worked together and created standards, tests, and now accountability systems. In other words, what do you do if things aren't working out the way they should? Second, we have seen the limits of the Federal Government trying to do it. I think President George W. Bush and President Obama deserve credit for looking at our Nation and seeing this is an urgent problem and wanting to do more from here. That is an understandable impulse. But there are limits to what you can do from here. We have seen that in the backlash to common core--the academic standard which was incentivized or mandated from Washington. We have seen that in the backlash to teacher evaluation defined in Washington. The truth is that too much Washington involvement in setting standards in States and evaluating teachers in cities sets back teacher evaluation and higher standards, which to me are the holy grail of K- through-12 education.…”