This letter appeared in the 2014 Thomas B. Fordham Institute Annual Report. To learn more, download the report.
Fordham friends,
For the education-reform movement, 2014 was more of a mixed bag. It was famously the year when America was supposed to, but did not, achieve “universal proficiency”—a goal set by the No Child Left Behind Act back in 2002. That nearly thirteen years have now passed without a much-needed ESEA reauthorization gives us one clue as to what went awry: gridlock in Congress and an administration incapable or unwilling to move lawmakers to act. It’s hard to make improvements in policy when the policymaking machine grinds to a halt. Unilateral—and, arguably, unconstitutional—action by the executive branch is not a durable solution.
Yet that dysfunction also offers lessons worth heeding. If statutory updates are to materialize as often as the thirteen-year cicada, we should make sure that laws are written in a way that allows states and districts the room to make tweaks along the way. Likewise, we should be careful about locking in prescriptions or mandates, because we might have to live with them long after they’ve fulfilled their usefulness—or have been proven unworkable.
We also ought to reflect on the logic of turning aspirational goals (for instance, “universal proficiency” and “no child left behind”) into rigid statutory language (such as “adequate yearly progress”). How much more sustainable and popular might NCLB have been if its shapers had pushed for significant but achievable progress rather than making Pollyanna demands? How can we make sure that the country’s current interest in moving lots more students toward “college and career readiness” doesn’t morph into a similar utopian crusade? How can we give “career readiness” the serious attention it deserves? How can we ensure that careless legislative language we write today does not lock out promising new instructional and delivery models tomorrow?
These are the sorts of questions, about education policy in general and the education-reform movement in particular, that you have come to expect from Fordham. As you will read in these pages, 2014 brought myriad opportunities for us to play our role as Education Gadfly across a wide swath of issues, both nationally and in Ohio, that include Common Core, charter quality, voucher accountability, and “education for upward mobility.” We appreciate your support, without which none of this would be possible, and your willingness to hear us out—especially when we challenge both established pieties and reformers’ dogmas. Gird yourself, for there’s more of that to come in 2015 and beyond.
Respectfully,
Michael J. Petrilli
