I think Mike has it exactly right when he says, "There's no doubt in my mind that the implementation of No Child Left Behind could have been much more successful had we engaged the Department's career staff earlier and in a more meaningful way." 
I found this exact problem on the state level when I was doing research last year for my senior thesis. I wanted to look at the unquantifiable variables in NCLB's implementation in New Haven, CT (a typically struggling, mostly minority, high poverty urban area). I set up interviews with local and state officials and was given access, in particular, to some of the state-federal correspondence. This included publically released documents like new regulations, interpretations of the law, and similar (all of which, if you're interested, you can find online). These were understandably in dry bureaucratic monotone. But I also got to see some of the letters exchanged over Connecticut's request for waivers and in response to questions posed about different standards. I got a glimpse of some email correspondence, too, and of course I talked to lots and lots of people. The one theme running throughout all of it? Nasty tone of voice. If you've ever doubted that perfecting your snark is an art form, I'm here to tell you that these folks were pros.??
This is not to say that Connecticut's beef with ED over NCLB has merit or doesn't. (There's an entire court case debating this fact if you want to learn more about it.) I ultimately wasn't super interested in that. What I was interested in was how the relationship between the people who handled NCLB in CT and their contacts at the federal Department of Education were so negative and hostile that it was a wonder the two of them??ever??spoke to each other, let alone had a productive conversation. If you mentioned the word "trust" to a state official, they'd start laughing at you. There are obviously many reasons for this deterioration and I'm sure both sides are at fault, but it is important to remember that the success of the biggest legislation can unfortunately rest on the relationship of two people. Ultimately, it seemed that most state and local administrators hated NCLB because they hated the people who represented it. That speaks to the damaged brand that NCLB has become as well as the relationship patching-up ED needs to do now if NCLB is ever to rise from the ashes.??
I'm hopeful, though, after hearing about the productive relationships within Obama's inner circle and reading Mike's comments about the tone now at 400 Maryland Avenue. I didn't have the contacts to really get a feel for the intra-Department dealings in Washington while I was doing my research but sounds like that could have been part of the problem too. A new tone is good news for the feds--but it's also good news for states and districts.
Photo by Tina Dupuy.
