–From Washington to Madison to the school in your neighborhood, education is at a crossroads — and 2009 will bring big-time decisions.

Care to change the status quo? Now’s the time.
Think we need some serious changes in direction? Now’s the time.
Feel like fighting back against whomever you blame for education problems? Now’s the time.

Been wondering when the school finance kettle is going to boil over? Pretty good chance now’s the time.
Just look at some of the big things that are on the agenda related to kindergarten-through-12th-grade education this year:

National
–No Child Left Behind. Congress was supposed to act in 2007 on whether to continue on the paths set by the sweeping federal education law. Didn’t happen. Not in 2008, either.

Now, George W. Bush is departing as president. Barack Obama, who gets the job this month, avoided giving really clear signals during his campaign on just what he would and would not change. Revamping the law is at the top of the education list for his administration.

Most likely, much of it will remain in effect. But the way schools are judged will change — more flexibility on showing whether they’re doing OK when it comes to students making progress, for one thing.

And the notion that 100% of public school students in the United States will be deemed „proficient“ by 2014? Well, either that will change or pretty much every school in the country will be regarded as sub-par five years from now.

–New secretary of education. Arne Duncan. Friend of Obama’s, chief for seven years of Chicago Public Schools, widely described as a nice guy who has maintained good relations with just about everybody. Both the new president and the new secretary have earned praise from both sides of an important divide within the ranks of their supporters.

To sum up that divide: Can schools alone do what needs to be done to get better results for low-income students nationwide, or do surrounding social and economic factors need to change to really accomplish that?
Are conventional channels for training teachers and operating schools the route to go, or should emphasis be put on new routes? Obama and Duncan will have to come down on one side or the other on some of those questions.

Wisconsin
–School funding. Every school in the state is under serious financial pressure, some more than others. Many want more help from Madison and, with Democrats now in charge of both houses of the Legislature, they’ll probably get a more sympathetic hearing than in recent years, except for one thing: State government is facing its own huge financial crisis. It may be hard to keep state aid at the level it is at now.

Will any ideas for changing the way state aid is distributed gain life? Education will be a big subject as the state budget process is launched in coming weeks.

–Milwaukee Public Schools. A potentially important report by an international consulting firm is due in the next few weeks.
It is expected to provide both Gov. Jim Doyle and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett with recommendations on ways to change MPS — how to run it, how to fund it, how to spend money and, as an indirect result, how to get better educational outcomes overall.
Doyle says that even with the state’s budget problems, he wants to pursue MPS reform.

Frustration with the system and its results is high. Is anything seriously going to change? Well, let’s put it this way — if not in 2009, don’t expect it anytime soon.

–Milwaukee voucher schools. In recent years, the fact that Republicans had a majority in the state Assembly provided protection for Milwaukee’s controversial voucher program, which is allowing more than 20,000 students to attend private and religious schools using public money.
Now, the Democrats are in control. Will that lead to new regulation of the voucher schools — such as requiring that voucher students take the state’s standardized tests and having school-by-school results released publicly?
Or maybe bigger changes than that, such as cutting back the program? How about changing the funding of the program so that the load on Milwaukee property-tax payers is reduced? All of those questions are likely to get tied into the state budget process.

–A new state superintendent. Elizabeth Burmaster is not running for re-election, after eight years as head of the Department of Public Instruction. The election is in April, with a primary likely in February.
The powers of the position are limited, but the change could have an impact not only in how the new superintendent uses the soapbox that the office provides, but also in some specifics, such as the state’s schedule of annual testing.
Why does Wisconsin give tests in November and report results in May? Other states do it differently, with, for one thing, quicker results.

–The QEO and other policies. Since the mid-1990s, the state has allowed school districts to impose a cap known as the qualified economic offer on increases in salaries and fringe benefits.
It has been hugely unpopular among teachers and their union leaders. Doyle has proposed eliminating it in the past. As another effect of the Democratic control of the Legislature, it seems almost certain to die this year.
To what effect? Stay tuned.

And other issues shaping education could come up. Changes in health insurance law? Milwaukee teacher residency rules?
Wait and see.

Milwaukee
–Milwaukee School Board elections. Most likely, the biggest news about Milwaukee schools will be made in Madison this year. But there is still a School Board. Four of the nine seats will be on the ballot in April.
There will be at least two new members — Jennifer Morales and Danny Goldberg are not running for re-election — and two prominent members, board President Peter Blewett and Charlene Hardin, are facing opposition.
Particularly when it comes to local issues, such as school closings, it still matters who is on the board.

–The next MPS superintendent? A sleeper issue. With more than six years under his belt, William Andrekopoulos appears set on staying until retiring in 2010, maybe even beyond.

Jockeying to be his successor hasn’t gotten serious yet. But Andrekopoulos plans to hire a chief academic officer for MPS early in 2009 and, in an unusual step for him, is looking at candidates from outside MPS. Especially if the person is an outsider, the person will move immediately into a prominent position as a possible successor.

At every level, the huge, overriding issue in education, as in most everything else, will be the state of the economy.

Economy helps, hurts
In some ways, the economy could help when it comes to education. There are proposals for including tens of billions of dollars for schools in a federal economic stimulus package, and, historically, teacher hiring becomes easier (and the quality of the candidates better) in harder economic times.
But hard times tend to be hard across the board, and in schools, that can affect everything from construction projects to hiring to class size to supplies of paper and classroom materials.

In other words, the education world starts 2009 with the need to make huge decisions at every level affecting people in the Milwaukee area.
The potential — and arguably, the need — is there for the year to bring major change, with fresh starts and maybe some positive turns.
Or maybe the year will just end up with shortages of paper clips.

Alan J. Borsuk has covered Milwaukee Public Schools and education issues for the Journal Sentinel and The Milwaukee Journal since 1998.