A few weeks ago, I started teaching a class of real live history students for my practicum at Lincoln (Neb.) High School. It has been a lot of fun and a very interesting experience so far, but I am quickly learning in a very hands on sort of way that teaching is an extremely complicated activity. As most people know, there are lessons and activities to be planned and assignments and tests to be written and graded. I have to be constantly thinking about classroom management and discipline, and considering varying skill levels and language abilities. I also have to take into account disabilities and a variety of other outside situations that affect my students’ learning. It can be a little overwhelming at times.

Educational policy works in much the same way. We have a tendency in this country to oversimplify public policy into very narrow, compartmentalized issues, but education (in addition to many other things) does not work this way.

Consider, for example, the recent Texas social studies standards debate. Last spring the Texas Board of Education came under a great deal of public scrutiny when they changed some of their state social studies standards to reflect a far-right leaning ideology. A lot of people didn’t like this because these changes in the standards could have huge impact on the content of textbooks all over the country. Earlier this week, the same school board came under fire again for passing a resolution calling on textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam.

While I am glad this has focused attention on social studies education in this country, much of the ensuing debate has failed to take into account the complexities inherent in education. Regardless of where you stand on the changes and the resolution, the fact of the matter is that the actual impact on most students’ education will be minuscule if any impact is made at all. Teachers are still going to talk about cross-cultural issues and the impact of Islam. Most of the pressing issues that affect education have nothing to do with standards like this. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a shame when we start trying to shape curriculum to fit political agendas, but we ought to just let Texas be Texas, and direct our attention elsewhere.

On the other hand, one piece of legislation that I think has done a good job of at least recognizing the complex nature of education but has not received a great deal of attention is President Obama’s “Race to the Top.” This $4.35 billion federal program (which actually was just completed this month, but will likely receive more funding and continue for at least the next few years) was essentially a competition between states to comply with certain criteria intended to spark “reform and innovation.” States stood to win cash awards from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. There were two yearlong “rounds” of competition, and the winners of the second round were announced late last month (Nebraska did not win).

Now this legislation has certainly been controversial, and personally I think that it is more about compliance with national student and teacher assessment standards and less about innovation than Obama would admit. However, this legislation brings to light many of the important questions we are facing in education and looks at answering them in a comprehensive sort of way.

For example, within the criteria there are provisions to encourage community and family involvement and at the same time provisions that impact state testing and assessment. There are measures for improving low performing schools and for raising overall performance. There are aspects that affect teachers and administrators and others that require state, district and local-level cooperation.

It seems that Race to the Top recognizes some of the complexities within education like the need for a system to accurately measure student learning and development, but also for the freedom to encourage innovative and creative teaching practices or the need to reward encourage great teachers, but also to recognize that some things are beyond teachers’ control.

While I don’t think that in the end “Race to the Top” will deliver the results we’re hoping for, and I don’t think that it gives the right answers to the questions it brings to light, I do know that we need this sort of big picture thinking.

I also think it is commendable of the Obama Administration to try something new like this. No one can deny that our educational system in this country has problems. So while I’m not saying this is a case of “anything is better than nothing,” when you are graduating only a third of students with reading proficiency and facing increasing disparity between schools in this country, it’s worth taking some risks.

Our problems in education won’t be solved by one piece of legislation, and there is no easy fix. The process of improving education has to involve students, families, teachers, administrators, and district, state, and federal officials and we need to work on all levels if we want to see improvement.

If we fixate on single issues without seeing the big picture or get distracted by partisan nonsense like we’ve seen in Texas the past few months, we’ll end up wasting time and hurting students. We need to focus on things that really matter and keep our eye on the big picture.

Obama’s Race to the Top has just ended its second round, and this provides a great opportunity for discussion on some of the things that really matter in education.