In these roles, it’s straightforward to get discouraged. Reich recollects a stretch, a yr into his tenure, when he was in a “foul temper” as a result of it was so onerous to get any traction for his spending plans. He groused, “Deficit discount is the one sport on the town.” (If solely!) Ultimately, his chief of workers let him have it:
You’re the captain. Individuals watch you for refined cues about whether or not our crew is successful or shedding, and whether or not they’re doing what you need them to. Each one of many assistant secretaries and their deputies, together with tons of of senior workers round right here, see that hangdog look in your eyes, the best way your shoulders droop . . . What did you suppose authorities can be like, anyway? Did you suppose you possibly can snap your fingers . . . and America would change? That’s simply conceitedness, Mr. Secretary. Pure conceitedness.
Turning into a “public servant” doesn’t imply one’s been given a license to radically remake the nation. The license to behave boldly must be earned; it requires credibility and broad assist. I’m struck at what number of authorities appointees (who haven’t been elected to something, thoughts you) don’t get this. Once I recall a few of schooling’s crash-and-burn moments of the previous decade, from the Frequent Core to trainer analysis to pupil mortgage “forgiveness,” it’s clear that too many federal and state officers mistook a job title for a magic wand. I think that this type of haughty, “shut-up-and-follow” tack has undercut accountable schooling governance and fueled the rise of as we speak’s “sugar-frosted” schooling politics.
In my favourite passage from his guide, Reich displays on the distinction between coverage advocacy and policymaking—between pipe goals and real-world politics. He writes:
I recall my courses at Harvard. A few of my college students used to treat policy-making as a matter of discovering the “proper” reply to a public downside. Politics was a set of obstacles which needed to be circumvented so the “proper” reply might be applied. Coverage was clear—it might be finished on a pc. Politics was soiled—unpredictable, passionate, typically mean-spirited or corrupt. Coverage was good; politics, a vital evil.
I’d spend whole programs attempting to disabuse them. I’d ask them how they knew that they had the “proper” reply. They’d dazzle me with methods—cost-benefit analyses, chance and statistics, regression evaluation. Their math was flawless. However—I’d ask once more—how did they know that they had the proper reply?
They by no means did. At most, coverage wonks might help the general public deliberate the probably penalties of varied selections. However they will’t presume to make the alternatives. Democracy is disorderly and typically dismaying, however it’s the solely supply of knowledge on this rating.
No matter polls present within the second, Reich muses, the general public typically “doesn’t know what it needs till it has a chance to debate and contemplate.” And the general public is usually vulnerable to altering its thoughts. (That’s how Okay–12 accountability might ballot at 90 % within the run-up to 2001’s No Baby Left Behind, then bleed assist as soon as individuals noticed it in observe.) The job of public officers isn’t merely to do huge issues—it’s to coach and persuade, to hear and course-correct.
If you happen to’re not up for the requisite frustration and perspiration, you’re not up for the job.