Lisa Graham Keegan
BROOKS, DAVID
Lisa Graham Keegan, Too Good for the GOP? By David Brooks Every so often the conservative movement casts up another hero. Sometimes the darling of the moment turns out to be a true hero, like Ward...
...Instead, the backers of a charter school—educators or parents or developers or whoever they may be—can go to one of several different bodies for approval, including the State Board of Charter Schools and the State Board of Education...
...At a recent conservative get-together, the Dark Ages Weekend, she found herself agreeing with the libertarian speakers...
...The district bureaucracies, obviously—they've taken to labeling her the "superintendent for private instruction" because of her school-choice philosophy...
...They are unhappy in the extreme," Keegan notes...
...In a piece on Keegan in the April 6 National Review, Clint Bolick argued that her strong state standards can be used to head off national standards and tests...
...In fact, if anything, she is more activist in her political style and nuanced in her policy beliefs than some guardians of Conservative Correctness can acknowledge...
...She was the first high-ranking Republican to call for the resignation of Arizona governor Fife Symington...
...That position is fine for those howling at government from the outside...
...During the Evan Mecham scandals, Keegan became interested in, and appalled by, the state legislature...
...and includes sensory details and concrete language to advance the story line...
...Finally—and this might be the real reason for the politicos' reaction—there are the residents of the rich school districts...
...Republicans have almost religious affection for local control and a sometimes unthinking reverence for the small-scale institutions of civil society...
...In truth, it is odd to see Republicans rising to the defense of unequal spending, since a favorite Republican talking point on education is that there is no relationship between spending and student achievement...
...Arizona now has more than 250 charter schools, with about 27,000 students...
...Arizona's new standards earn A and B marks from the Fordham Foundation, the organization that conducts thorough reviews of state education standards...
...Keegan is moderately pro-choice and a big fan of Steve Forbes—at least Forbes as he was in 1996...
...After graduation she moved back to Arizona to get a masters degree in speech pathology at Arizona State University, then went on to do research at a V.A...
...In 1993, Keegan was a thirtysomething state legislator in Phoenix pushing a radical school-reform plan that featured vouchers and parental choice...
...Under Keegan's plan to equalize per-pupil spending across the state, spending in the richest districts would go down...
...You eliminate voucher programs...
...To this day," she says, "I don't think anybody has read the charter provision to that bill...
...Earlier this month, Keegan was testifying before Congress on school reform when, as she recalls, some of the members "alluded to the argument that the federal government should not try to denigrate local control...
...Keegan's got the charm and intelligence of a budding political star...
...During one tussle last summer, Keegan lashed out at critics from the Madison District, calling them a "gang of the rich...
...Currently, rich suburbs spend a lot of money per child, while poor districts spend only a little, a pattern that has been declared unconstitutional in Arizona and many other states...
...Instead of districts' raising the money for their own schools, the state would raise money and allocate it to students...
...First, there is no limit on the number of charter schools that can be established in Arizona, unlike in many states...
...Some Republicans are so hostile to government they won't contemplate government action even if it is necessary to bust concentrated power and enhance individual freedom...
...Local control means no change...
...She points out that right now, state school chiefs, who are political animals, get to create the standards and tests by which their own performance is judged...
...Voters won't endorse school-voucher plans unless they first see independent public schools operating effectively...
...The tests have sent a wave of anxiety through the Arizona education community...
...Keegan's praises have been sung by the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Reason magazine, National Review, and other right-thinking organs...
...His answer to me is the same one...
...Lisa Graham Keegan and the handful of top education experts who have served in Republican administrations, such as Bill Bennett, Diane Ravitch, Chester Finn, and Bruno Manno, come from different perspectives—from libertarian to neo-liberal...
...It's also politically popular...
...The state education establishment went apoplectic at the mention of vouchers and succeeded in defeating the bill...
...There's no reason to have a choice of really lousy schools...
...There has to be a national audit: "The state standards have to be enforced by a national standard," Keegan argues...
...Yet it's striking that this consensus of the experts is politically incorrect in lay Republican circles and among many movement conservatives...
...Many libertarians would rather preserve an ideologically pure anti-government position, which calls for dismantling power but never using it...
...It feels invasive...
...She ran for a seat in 1990, won, and ended up chairing the education committee, which led to her revolutionary bill...
...It's not just a good idea—it's absolutely essential...
...It breaks it open," Keegan says...
...I just wanted to come out of my chair...
...organizes ideas in meaningful sequence...
...Her biological father abandoned her when she was three months old, eventually going off to run a beatnik coffeehouse in Carmel, Calif...
...But Bolick, who opposes national tests and standards, did not mention that Keegan herself supports them...
...Local control is a monopoly...
...Moreover, the proposed exercises are not easy: "Write a narrative or story that develops complex characters, plot structure, point of view and setting...
...But they arrive at similar positions: charter schools on the way to school choice...
...Keegan is in the midst of a long and strenuous effort to centralize Arizona's school-funding mechanism...
...Republicans love to talk about the power of the marketplace, but they don't want to talk about the government activism—which in Arizona involves raising state taxes—that is required to bring about a school-choice regime...
...A number of groups are unhappy with Keegan's ideas...
...And not coincidentally, it is a necessary component of a school-choice regime...
...We need local control.' So far, I just can't move him...
...Then there are the Republican politicos, who don't want to do anything that might appear to trample on the holy notion of local control...
...You eliminate charter schools...
...But it's also a powerful barrier to education reform...
...She's an odd mixture of Susan Molinari enthusiasm and Margaret Thatcher defiance...
...Tests will start in 2001, and students must pass them in order to get diplomas...
...They assume that any reform they set in motion will eventually be taken over by their political rivals...
...These are public schools that don't have to kowtow to the big bureaucracies...
...Keegan's father recently gave her a chart that she put up on her wall, showing that the 10 richest districts in Arizona are also the 10 most Republican...
...The Republicans' failure to come up with a governing philosophy explains the party's stagnation...
...Keegan insists that all students must take the tests in English...
...Conservatives love to talk about charter schools, and with good reason...
...it has that comforting populist ring that gets GOP heads bobbing...
...I've sat down with Steve Forbes about this and Dan Quayle," she says...
...The fear comes in what's going to be on them," she says...
...We all say the market will drive you to excellence, but it will only drive you to excellence if you know what excellence is...
...Moreover, as Lisa Keegan notes, if you want to achieve full school choice eventually, you have to set up charters now...
...Keegan insists that equal per-pupil spending is the morally compelling position...
...State dollars would go to whatever school the child attended...
...It has two key features...
...And sometimes the object of our admiration turns out to be Flake-o Supreme—mention the name of ClintonCare fighter Betsy McCaugh-ey in front of a bunch of right-wingers and watch them stare at their shoes and try to change the subject...
...This is the single most important issue...
...Her goal is to eliminate local property-tax-based bond initiatives and replace the lost revenue from increased state sales taxes...
...Keegan is way ahead of them...
...I like Steve Forbes very much...
...Right now, states can make outrageous claims that are unwarranted...
...Keegan also says she won't allow students to use calculators on the math sections...
...Second, the plan would attach money, even for capital expenses, to the child...
...I'm just uncomfortable...
...Before her tenure, Arizona had some vague standards, on the order of "Students shall appreciate literature...
...In sum, Republicans say they want to change the education system radically, but their mental habits contribute to the stagnation we have seen, especially in Washington, over the last few years...
...The provision turned out to be a time bomb that would lead to the creation of hundreds of independent public schools...
...When asked what book most influenced her political outlook, Keegan immediately names Hayek's Road to Serfdom...
...And Keegan recognizes something many libertarians have been loath to acknowledge: If you really want to dismantle the welfare state, you need a period of activist government...
...Keegan's other great activist and centralizing initiative has been to create a set of rigorous statewide academic standards and tests...
...But when Gary Bauer gets up and talks," she says, "he makes me nervous...
...Keegan was the national champion sidesaddle rider in 1978, and she did well enough in high school to be admitted to Stanford, where she majored in linguistics with hopes of becoming either a brain surgeon or a speech pathologist...
...At the same time, Kee-gan, like all conservative education experts, can see how national tests could be captured and abused...
...rigorous standards backed up by independently formulated national tests...
...You can supply your own joke as to how this research led to a career in politics...
...They'd lose a highly profitable (and some would say corrupting) line of business...
...Lisa Graham Keegan is a rarity among politicos not only because she has retained a sense of humor about herself, but also because she has created a style of conservative activism that actually produces change...
...Sometimes the darling of the moment turns out to be a true hero, like Ward Connerly, the spokesman for the California Civil Rights Initiative...
...Regular public schools have to step up their performance to meet the competition...
...That ultimately would shift power to parents, who could send their kids to new charter schools, and away from district bureaucracies...
...You should not denigrate parent control, or student equality, or the decisions at a local school, but you absolutely should get in the face of local control...
...A politically fashionable or easy national test would actually undermine state tests if students who were failing at the state level suddenly passed an easy national exam...
...Keegan is a big believer in standards and tests...
...I can't go there...
...But when the legislation was reintroduced without the voucher provision, Keegan's opponents were so busy declaring victory they apparently didn't notice the radical charter-school language still lurking inside...
...But Keegan can be awkward company for Republicans and libertarians...
...Standards are a nonnegotiable piece on the way to full-out school choice...
...But it doesn't amount to a governing philosophy, and it isn't much help if you are trying to modernize government from within...
...Her mother remarried, choosing a no-nonsense business executive who instilled a competitive spirit in his stepdaughter and a love of political debate...
...This time the news is good...
...It's the only position consistent with equal opportunity...
...Yet she watches her fellow Republicans invent high-minded reasons to defend the unequal spending patterns that have been struck down in state after state...
...National tests have incredible potential...
...Symington resigned last year in disgrace...
...But they don't have any way to confront the entrenched local associations that are bastions of the status quo...
...According to Phoenix magazine, this meant she was "shunned at Republican functions, tormented by the rumor mill...
...Republicans love to talk about local control...
...hospital on Wernicke's aphasia, a brain disorder that prevents its sufferers from understanding the words that are coming out of their mouths...
...Keegan was so happy with the reform potential of the new law, and so concerned about getting the law implemented properly, that she ran for superintendent of public instruction in 1994 and won...
...Also, "the bonding houses are just wigging out...
...Conservatism may have cast up a true hero this time— whether or not it deserves her...
...For example, she is now waging a frontal assault on the notion of local control of education...
...But Lisa Graham Keegan is more than just the leading proponent of charter schools...
...Finally, many Republicans have retained the defeatist mentality of a minority party...
...Second, you don't have to get approval from the local school board to set up a charter (a bit like asking your boss if you can set up a competing firm across the street...
...And while it is early yet, there is already evidence that charter schools significantly improve educational achievement...
...Because all those things happen in spite of local governing boards, not because of them...
...you need to centralize authority in order to bust entrenched interests...
...This plan would accomplish two things...
...At the moment, one of the right-wing poster kids is Lisa Graham Keegan, the Arizona schools chief who has created the most effective charter-school program in the country...
...First, it would standardize the sum spent on a child's education...
...She is on the libertarian side of the Republican party...
Vol. 3 • April 1998 • No. 32
