My latest op-ed, title above, appeared in The Virginian-Pilot yesterday. The topic was No Child Left Behind and the recent revelation that a majority of Virginia schools failed to make adequate yearly progress on the most recent round of tests.
One of the most interesting items I came across in my research for the column was this article on Diane Ravitch, which includes an excerpt from her book. This part particularly stood out for me:
I came to realize that the sanctions embedded in NCLB were, in fact, not only ineffective but certain to contribute to the privatization of large chunks of public education. I wonder whether the members of Congress intended this outcome. I doubt that they did.
I don’t doubt that some members of Congress didn’t intend this privatization. When you elect people who don’t believe in public education, people who would rather see the government out of the education business, then they implement policies to achieve that end. NCLB is a mechanism for getting what those people want.
I will say, though, that it seems that most people don’t want to destroy our schools, even those who don’t use the public schools themselves. I had a long conversation with a gentleman here in Norfolk a few weeks ago who sent his children to private Christian schools. By the time we finished talking about what could be done to improve our public schools, we agreed in principle on what could be done – and without spending a ton of money to get there.
I don’t know anyone who thinks NCLB is a good idea anymore. So the only holdup on fixing or repealing it seems to be politics. In the meantime, it’s a generation of kids that are paying the price.
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VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Quite simply, the federal government has no business in K-12 education.
Warren: We’re somewhat in agreement. The federal government certainly has no business dictating curriculum and deciding which schools are succeeding and which are failing. If they want to provide some of the funding — in terms of block grants to the states who would control how it’s spent — that I don’t have a problem with.
The federal government has no business dictating curriculum?
Correct.
The money comes from the people, not from the government. So why send the money through more wasteful bureaucracy?
Well, if it didn’t come back to the states, it would be used for something conservatives find wasteful, yes? I wasn’t suggesting that they take more money for the purpose of sending it back, but that the feds send more of what they already take back to the states.
Doubtless it would, but at least it would not be screwing up our kids’ education.
At the root of participation in NCLB is federal funding for education. It was the threat of losing that funding that kept states in the program in the first place: Dillard’s remarks were made after the House of Delegates passed a resolution asking Congress to exempt us from it. Like other states, Virginia did not opt out of the law, because it could not afford to lose the funding.”
That’s the part I really hate. The government takes our money (by force), and then blackmails us so we can get some of it back.
It’s the children who are paying the price when we fail to teach them to be able to read and to write and to compute and to participate successfully in a civil society. NCLB was created to help to address the FAILURE of too many of our children to achieve the rudimentary skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. This was not a draconian imposition on a successful institution; it was an attempt to improve schools that inarguably were failing too many of our kids. All of us want successful kids and believe we need successful schools to achieve that. If public schools do not uphold the standards of self-discipline, respect, and education to achieve that then private schools are preferable to holding our children hostage.
The biggest problem with NCLB is the presumption that all children can read, write and compute. That’s why Dillard called it “utopian nonsense.”
In its execution, I do consider it a draconian imposition on successful institutions. One need only look at the number of “failing” schools to see that. And I find it telling that private schools are not being subjected to the same thing. How, exactly, are private schools held accountable? They, after all, don’t have to educate certain parts of our population.
Private schools, or course, are accountable to the people who pay the bills. If the school does not perform, parents put their kids somewhere else, and the school goes out of business.
Vouchers and school choice could do the same for public schools.
You and others keep saying that private schools are accountable but not how they are accountable. How does a non-educator parent evaluate whether a private school is actually teaching their children – and not just taking their money? Without any standardized tests to compare private schools, just how are they accountable?
They are held accountable by college admissions, SAT and ACT and AP test scores, etc. Parents look at these factors when choosing private schools for their children. They also look at other factors, such as the military aspects of FUMA, chess clubs (FUMA students are obvious by their uniforms), drama, music, sports, etc. Parents can choose a private school that focuses on their children’s interests and needs.
Public schools are held accountable by the same things, are they not? Except they have the additional burden of SOLs, NCLB and educating those who the private schools don’t have to take.
Bottom line: NCLB needs to go.
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And here’s another good article on the subject.
No, they are not, because the parents are not free to take their children and the money to another school. That would come through vouchers and school choice.
You are mixing up choice with accountability. The two are NOT the same.
And choice, by the way, is a part of NCLB. Parents have the opportunity to move their children from “failing” schools to another. But Ravitch said that parents are NOT exercising that option,
Accountability: choice hits them square in the accounts. When parents stop choosing a private school, that school loses money and goes out of business.
The school choice in NCLB is very limited. Only students from failing schools have any choice, and the school they transfer to has to be in their school district. (Alexandria has only one public high school — so much for their choice). Furthermore, priority is given to “low-achieving children from low-income families,” so not everyone is even given such a choice.
Do you support the school choice part of NCLB?
Never mind about Alexandria — only students in Title I schools have any choice, and only if their school fails two years running. T.C.Williams has failed THREE years running, but it is not a Title I school. I also found out that if ALL schools in a district are failing, THEN a student (but only from a failing TITLE I school) can go outside his district.
However, we do not disagree on NCLB. SOLs were well-named.
My perception was that NCLB got into law on the basis of creating accountability and improving outcomes. It was all very high minded. I still recall the “soft bigotry of low expectations” line today.
I don’t disagree that measurement based accountability systems can create perverse outcomes or drive perverse behaviors. But what do you replace it with? And more broadly, how do you create a system that promotes a meritocracy?
You replace it with a voucher system and school choice.