Today, Secretary Duncan is giving a speech about the federal role in education (check out Jamie's post about the speech??here.)
This is a very, very tricky subject. I've yet to come across anyone with a comprehensive, water-tight argument for what the feds should and should not do. For every education area that some want the feds to newly address, there's at least another area where they did get involved to limited or nil success. This all makes me wonder why Duncan would jump into these turbulent waters now?
After reading the speech, I'm sad to say he didn't navigate them so well himself and didn't provide new bearings to the rest of us on shore.
He began by arguing against the two extremes. On the one hand, he wants a limited federal presence with state and local leaders driving change. The feds shouldn't direct, micro-manage, or be "the boss." On the other hand, he wants Uncle Sam to be an "active partner," leading voice for reform, and a supporter of promising initiatives. He doesn't want the feds to completely stand down because in years past the federal government "mostly sat on the sideline while a shameful achievement gap persisted."
A cynic might say that this is trying to have it both ways. But I think this is a fair initial formulation. He wants to find the federal aurea mediocritas, the golden mean between excess and deficiency.??That's certainly a prudent approach.
The problem for policy-makers, of course, is that this is precisely what those who constructed NCLB had in mind. Their compromise was to require standards and assessments but allow states to create them; require the pursuit of proficiency but allows states to define it; require the intervention in failing schools but allow states and districts to lead it. This seems to square nicely with Duncan's map: federal leadership and guidance but local action.
Duncan's version of the middle road begins with national/common standards and tests. As he puts it, the feds should be tight on the goals and loose on the means. This presumably means Uncle Sam leads the way in deciding what kids are taught and measuring whether it was learned, then getting out of the way and allowing states and districts to get the job done.
He faults NCLB for "prescribing what schools need to do year after year." "Educators don't need a prescription for success. They need a common definition of success."
But by his own admission paragraphs earlier, the achievement gap persisted while states and districts were in control--this certainly suggests that some kind of external prescription is needed. Moreover, it's not fair to contend that we have performance problems because we lack a national definition of proficiency. I know of no teacher who says, "I can't teach my students effectively because Nebraska has a different cut score." Yes, having a common definition of success would make national K-12 results??tidier and??more transparent, but it wouldn't necessarily solve education challenges. The most accurate scale in the world will tell you exactly what you weigh but it won't help you shed holiday pounds.
Things then get more complicated. "We need to find a way to give state and local officials the freedom to intervene in schools that aren't achieving their goals. The federal government should not be the boss in these situations. It should offer ways to support schools, and so long as progress is being made, people on the ground should decide on the reforms they want to choose."
But this is exactly what NCLB corrective action and restructuring did. States and districts had huge leeway in their school interventions. They used professional development, conferences, turnaround specialists, mentors, coaches, curriculum experts, and much, much more. In fact, most observers argue that the infamous "other" option under restructuring gave too much flexibility.
Finally, Duncan suggests that when it comes to the very worst schools, the federal government should be bold and active. "I want to be clear that when we see dropout factories, when we know that in some schools that students are falling behind every year, I don't want the federal government to be a silent partner."
But earlier he said that educators don't need prescriptions. Then he said the federal government shouldn't be the boss. So what exactly would the federal government do here?
Unfortunately, I feel like I now know less about the administration's position on federalism in education than before the speech. I give Secretary Duncan and his team credit for diving into these waters. But all in all, I think this effort shows why so few people discuss this complicated issue and why NCLB is so hard to reauthorize.
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