Swift & Change Able

When I think of Senator Pell, I think of the 1994 Title I formula fight.  We had just lost an effort to target funding and get the feds involved in promoting school finance equity.  Hundreds of millions of dollars for poor kids were at stake, and we lost. 

The vote was 13-14 in conference committee.  It wasn’t along partisan lines.  Senator Pell put his hand on my shoulder afterwards. "Michael," he said, "sometimes you get a loaf of bread one slice at a time."  That sentiment has guided me many times since in my career.  

Senator Pell had vision and patience – two qualities that are all too rare in today’s politics. He worked the Pell Grant nine years before it was enacted in 1972. He advocated national standards decades before the standards-based reform movement took off.  In fact, he fought for national standards and a national assessment over thirty years ago.  We’re not there yet.  But the march is inexorable.  

I think history will treat Senator Pell well.