Words Matter
I became publisher of this magazine during a presidential election year, and this is now the seventh election cycle in which I’ve held the same job. Time flies when you’re having fun.
Each of these elections has prompted me to write at least one column in this space, although I have certainly never endorsed a candidate, and those columns have gotten a great deal of response from readers. Four years ago, for example, a woman wrote in and told me to keep my political opinions to myself, which I thought was pretty funny because I really hadn’t expressed any.
If that woman is still reading the magazine, I’m afraid she will be unhappy with me again this year. You see, ma’am, the things that politicians say are important. The proposals they put forward and the programs they support can have a very real impact on the school supply industry. Besides, as Ronald Reagan once said, “I paid for this microphone.”
Like most of you, by the way, I don’t vote for a presidential candidate based solely on the issues. I don’t necessarily have to like him (or, theoretically, her) but I do have to respect him, and most of all, trust him. As my wife often says, it’s like choosing your surgeon or the pilot of your plane. In a sense, we are all truly putting our lives in this person’s hands.
Nonetheless, issues do matter. There are at least a half-dozen hot button topics for me in this election, but the one most closely related to this magazine is the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. As you will recall, NCLB was a major part of the platform George W. Bush ran on in 2000, and became the chief legislative priority of his administration during his first year in office. It was overshadowed by the 9/11 attack, but was signed into law four months later, on January 8, 2002.
NCLB was a bipartisan effort, and aside from the fact that it was initially proposed by a Republican president there is nothing that strongly ties it to one party or the other. The stated goal of the law was that all children would be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. They would have to take standardized tests in those two subjects every year from grade three through eight, and underperforming schools would be required to implement a series of remedies all the way up to firing the staff or closing altogether. Federal aid would be denied to states that didn’t force school districts to comply.
I like the way they name laws these days, giving them a spin right out of the box. Who would want to leave children behind? And how could people oppose something called the Freedom Act? Are they in favor of slavery, or what?
No matter what you call it, however, I think NCLB was a mistake. The importance of reading and math is indisputable, but you cannot emphasize two subjects without de-emphasizing others, such as science, social studies, music, art and physical education, especially if you don’t increase the total amount of instruction time. We haven’t, and studies have shown that the non-tested subjects are indeed getting shorted.
In addition, the enforcement provisions are nonsensical. Nobody is actually going to close a school or fire an entire teaching staff. For one thing, the NCLB Act does not trump contracts or tenure and for another, taxpayers are not going to countenance the closure of a local school that they own. I don’t know who came up with those ideas, or what planet they’re living on.
Apparently, President Bush believes that the law is working. In his State of the Union speech this past January, he said, “No one can deny its results. Last year, fourth and eighth graders achieved the highest math scores on record. Reading scores are on the rise. African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs.” He did acknowledge that it needed some tinkering, to “increase accountability, add flexibility for states and districts, reduce the number of high school dropouts, and provide extra help for struggling schools,” but concluded, “It is succeeding.”
Not everyone agrees. Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education and professor at NYU, argues that NCLB is fundamentally flawed, and that academic gains have been modest or nonexistent. She calls the goal of universal proficiency “absurd,” thinks we have developed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing, and created unprecedented federal interference in the operation of local schools. Without a major overhaul, she says “we run the risk of seriously damaging public education and leaving almost all children behind.”
The original NCLB Act expired on September 30 of last year, but lawmakers could not reach agreement on what to do with it. They passed what they call a continuing resolution, which means that it remains in effect, without alterations, for another year, at which point it will expire again. As I understand it, Congress will most likely kick this can down the road until a new president comes in and takes the lead on fixing it.
Nobody knows who the next president will be, particularly in these days of Eliot Spitzer and Jeremiah Wright, but I checked out the websites of two U.S. senators who seem to be distinct possibilities, and clicked on “Issues.” Although they speak in generalities, both candidates imply that they support reauthorization, albeit on their own terms.
Barrack Obama says that the goal of NCLB was the right one, but it suffered from design flaws, unfunded mandates and inadequate implementation by the Education Department. He says we need to attract and train better teachers, reduce reliance on standardized tests, improve assessment of student progress, increase emphasis on science, and change the accountability measures from punishing failing schools to supporting them.
John McCain says that NCLB has focused our attention on the performance of students against a common standard, but considers the current status of education to be deplorable and the progress dismal. He wants schools to compete for students and high quality teachers, and wants parents to be able to move their children out of failing schools, along with all the public funding associated with those children.
If there is a common thread between the two, it is better pay for better teachers, but somehow I doubt there will be much agreement on how to go about doing that. Obama wants to reward teachers for serving as mentors, working in poor districts, or “consistent excellence in the classroom,” but did not explain how we would measure that. McCain believes that schools can’t be “safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable,” which sounds like he might oppose tenure, but must “compete for the most effective, character-building teachers, hire them, and reward them.”
It appears as though the next president will have quite a job on his hands trying to build a consensus around a retooled NCLB Act. In the meantime, the current law is starting to fray around the edges, with states routinely requesting and receiving exemptions on one requirement or another. Some are even talking about pulling out entirely, and Virginia recently became the first state to introduce legislation to that effect.
Before we all go off to voting booths next fall, let’s hope the candidates get a bit more specific about their intentions. As Ricky Riccardo used to say, they’ve got “a lot of splainin’ to do.”
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