David Leonhardt of the New York Times interviews U.S. Ed. Sec. Arne Duncan, former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, and former Michigan Governor John Engler:

Leonhardt: I think – whether you like the term or not – you all identify yourself as sympathetic to the goals of the school-reform movement. Given that, I’d be interested in your thoughts about what has the school reform movement – the “choice” movement or the accountability movement or whatever it is – learned? What did it not have quite right initially, and what has it learned?

Duncan: A huge thing: No Child Left Behind was very well-intentioned. It did lots of things to spotlight the achievement gap. What it didn’t get was the need for high standards. What actually happened, which is really, really insidious, is that you had almost 20 states, in reaction to the law, dummy-down their standards and lower their standards.

The worst thing that I think can happen to kids and families, and particularly disadvantaged communities, is that people expect less of them, to make politicians look good. What I think the reform movement got wrong fundamentally is it was very loose on goals but very tight on how to get there.

I just fundamentally believe in a different theory of change. I believe in being tight on goals – having a very high bar – and loose on how to get there. We should give people a lot more room and flexibility to create and to be innovative.

I think that the reform movement got that wrong in a big way. Not from lack of good intent. And I think that was big. It hurt the country in a way that we’re working hard to correct.