With Monday's news that there's a 10,000 pound gorilla called NCLB, I decided to go out and look for it.
I made stops at an Aspen Institute forum and a Department of Education advisory board meeting. I never found that gorilla.
By yesterday I was asking: Why is it that NCLB is seen as a monstrosity on the campaign trail but not in Washington?
I think I've got an answer, thanks to Michael Dannenberg of the New America Foundation. Dannenberg, who helped write the law as a staff member for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., explained to me that the politics of NCLB are more "top-down" than "left-right."
He means that the policy elites in Washington—President Bush, Sen. Kennedy, and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., to name a few—endorse the general principles of the law: standards, testing, accountability for results. You can also put states leaders such as governors and chiefs into that group.
But people on the ground who have to put those things into practice resist them. They don't necessarily believe that tests deliver results that should be used for accountability and see NCLB supplanting the decisions they've usually made.
That's why events where Washington policy folks (like the one put on by Aspen on Monday; see here for some complaints about the lopsided agenda) invited the speakers, the message on NCLB is upbeat. It's also why the NEA and AFT are fighting to change the law; their members on the ground are demanding it.
It's also why Barack Obama and John McCain are either ignoring NCLB or are making promises to change it. When one of them moves into the White House, which side will they choose? The Washington leaders (aka the top) or the teachers, school board members, and district leaders (aka the down)?
P.S. Dannenberg points out that some NCLB issues follow the traditional left v. right debate. Funding and vouchers are the best examples.
Thanks, David.
I'd put big school district superintendents in that top category as well. But just to reiterate, not everyone on the top supports the key principles undergirding standards-based reform. I think most do, though. And obviously, there are many, many people on ground -- teachers, parents, neighborhood school leaders -- who embrace the key principles of standards-based reform.
Hence, I emphasized to you that I thought the politics of NCLB were _more_ top-down than left-right. I appreciate you making that clear in your blog post above and giving me the opportunity to emphasize the point.
Michael
When will the "powers-that-be" listen to those of us that actually have to implement the decisions they make? After 34 years in education as both a classroom teacher and an administrator I'd like to be able to do more of what I believe is best for children. I don't think there is enough research to support that the small grain size of most of the standards and the repeated testing demanded by NCLB are improving student's general knowledge. Yes, we want to make sure all students reach their full potential in reading and math, but we also want them to become contributing members of a democracy able to make thoughtful choices when voting. We want them to have the social, emotional, physical and spiritual supports they need to be better citizens of the world. Repeated testing doesn't help us and, I would argue, gets in the way of innovation and real learning.
It's obvious that the de jure law coming "from the top wrung of the USDOE bureacracy" did not leave enough wiggle room for de facto practices of those who insist they have the silver bullet to know what is best for our children's education.
When we get vouchers, than we at the ground level can decide if we want our education leaders to follow scientific research or their gut feeling.
Nice tap-dance David but the law's both top-down and left-right. NCLB passed with a crushing, bi-partisan majority, in both houses. You'd better rethink your hypothesis to include that fact.
The reason Obama's not interested in NCLB is that black resentment of the public education system is one of the more widely-ignored facts of this election but Obama can't depend on the color of his skin when a black mommy and/or daddy looks at their kid. That's why he floated performance pay and charter trial balloons in his endorsement acceptance speech at the NEA.
The reason NCLB passed with such wide-ranging support is that the public education establishment had gotten used to treating Title I (and VI?) money as part of the general fund and spent it with a fine disregard for the law. That made the representatives who passed the law look like fools.
You want to reliably anger any politician? Make them look like a fool. Do it long enough and they'll overlook your political clout being concerned instead with their diminishing credibility.
David, and Michael,
You are right. I don't deny allen's point that the education establishment had treated Title money as general funds, although the word "establishment" is an over-reach. It implies more of a rational system than exists in our hodgepodge.
If you look at the Achievement Gap from the political and educational perspective today - as opposed to the 90s, Top Down makes no sense. Bruce Fuller's characterization of Obama's goals in the NYT blog, as linked from A-Russ, is so encouraging and it is just as viable politically.
Despite my reservations, I followed my union in supporting NCLB. After enduring six years of the unintended effects of NCLB-type accountability, I can get cranky with the law's original sponsors, but that's not constructive either. Obama will be coming in with educated but fresh eyes. I know that politics won't disappear. But, lets have an evidence-driven discussion on Top Down vs. Bottom Up.
In doing so, let's not forget how the same hubris and faith in numbers, without the discipline of imperfect flesh and blood democracy, gave us both the underwhelming performance of NCLB and today's financial crisis. Look at a chart of the soaring state test scores with the modest increases or flat trajectories of NAEP and you get a graphic display of a Bubble. If we want real improvements, keep the best of NCLB, the disagreggation of scores by race and economics, and make the data diagnosistic or for ranking purposes. Then incorporate rifleshot accountability into each aspect of Obama's capacity-building proposals.
Interesting that the top-down overlooks a place for students, parents and communities.