Four More Years

• PRINT
• EMAIL

Secretary of Education Rod Paige is gone. Pending Senate approval, Margaret Spellings is replacing him. What does this change in the Department of Education and a second-term Bush administration mean for our schools? Scholastic Administr@tor asked education policy expert Alexander Russo, formerly a policy adviser to two U.S. senators, to make some predictions.

 

As Inauguration Day approaches and the Department of Education gets a new leader, the Bush administration's second-term education agenda looks clear, especially when it comes to its legislative centerpieceThe No Child Left Behind Act isn't going away. During the 2004 campaign, the president repeatedly expressed his desire to expand NCLB's annual testing requirements to high schools and called for staying the course concerning the rest of the law. He also proposed $500 million in extra money for teachers whose students excel, as well as extra help for middle and high school literacy efforts.

There are several issues beyond NCLB, however, that will be in contention in the coming months and years. Republican control of Congress and the White House creates potential for some conservative social issues to become federal policy. In addition, two major reauthorizationsHead Start and the Higher Education Act, which fund the federal government's major student-aid programsare soon going to be on tap, generating opportunities and challenges on both sides. Meanwhile, Democrats and opponents of NCLB need to develop and revive their own education agenda.

President Bush is expressing interest in returning to a more bipartisan approach during his second term, mentioning in particular his success working with Democrats in 2001 on NCLB. Many Democrats are now conflicted or even regretful about their support for the law, which they say not only had some negative repercussions for schools but also gave the president a major domestic accomplishment.

It is hard to imagine leading Democrats like Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Congressman George Miller of California wanting to go through that process againor the president wasting much time trying to persuade them. He already has NCLB in his pocket, and requiring states to add annual high school exams would be extremely contentious. So in the end, few of the Bush campaign proposals regarding extra money and extra help are likely to become law.

NCLB takes hold

While that may sound like good news to some, it by no means indicates that NCLB will be watered down. Very few districts and no states have turned down the money in order to opt out of NCLB. And the latest news from the states is better than naysayers expected, which mutes the demand for change. The number of schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) is lower in many states compared with 2003, due to improved performance and softened state and federal requirements. For a variety of reasons, the transfer and tutoring directives are both turning out to be much smaller obstacles than initially thought.

Washington insiders almost universally agree that NCLB critics need to give up their heartbreakingly persistent hopes for an NCLB rollback. Even members of Congress who want to amend NCLB are not proposing to change its basic contours, says Jack Jennings, longtime Democratic Education Committee staff member and current director of the Center on Education Policy. Even a major shift of power is unlikely to result in a repeal of this reform.

The truth is that outside of some vocal education circles, NCLB is not considered all that immediately problematic. Media coverage regularly shows it to be arbitrary and unrealistic, but has yet to document any major disasters attributable to the law. Rating schools and holding them accountable for their performance are generally popular among parents and the public. Closing the achievement gap, one of the law's main purposes, is an unassailable goal that remains unaddressed even at some of the best schools in the nation. And there is strong support among some teachers, school leaders, and education groups for NCLB.

One such group, the Education Trust, gathered the signatures of more than 100 minority urban superintendents in support of the law, and recently issued a report suggesting that there has been small but significant progress in reducing achievement gaps since the law went into effect. The Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, long involved in school desegregation issues, is another NCLB supporter, as is the centrist Democratic group once headed by Bill Clinton called the Progressive Policy Institute.

Besides, the Republican leadership now firmly in control of both the House and Senate will have little interest in revisiting NCLB before it is up for formal review in 2007. The Senate is a notoriously difficult place to get things done, even with a 55-45 majority. The authorizing committees, made up almost entirely of the same members as before, are loath to reopen a process that took them the better part of two years to complete. They barely wrapped up the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which is the law governing special education policy in 2004, and they have the Higher Education Act and Head Start to look forward to already, along with the annual budget and appropriations bills.

Indeed, the need to reauthorize several other education programs may be a saving grace in that it will take time and energy away from hotheads on both sides. That's because any effort to fix NCLB is certain to bring forth a slew of education-related amendments. In particular, a Republican-controlled Congress may, given the opportunity, be sorely tempted to try to push through issues like vouchers. The president, many Republicans, and even some Democrats favor private-school vouchers. The president's original NCLB proposal called for students attending schools that repeatedly didn't make AYP to receive a $1,500 private-school voucher rather than the supplemental tutoring that ended up in the law. A federal voucher program for the District of Columbia began operating in January 2004.

Not every Republican lawmaker supports vouchers, but there are a number of centrist Democrats, as well as many who are up for reelection in two years, who must weigh carefully how hard to work at blocking popular education-based legislation. In the Senate, just five Democratic defectors are needed to ensure passage of any Republican-sponsored bill or amendment. Those defectors may come from the most unlikely places. For example, incoming Senator Barack Obama of Illinois voiced his open-mindedness on the voucher issue during a 2003 interview and is already a strong supporter of charter schools.

There are other social issues related to education, like school prayer, faith-based initiatives, and creationism in the curriculum that conservatives might raise. In addition to supporting a student's right to conduct student-led prayer, the president supports a local school board's right to teach creationism and favors only abstinence-based sex education. The administration may also make efforts to give faith-based organizations access to funding from both Head Start and higher education programs.

For Republicans, the main objective is to maintain and expand their new hold on education issues, which have in the past been perceived as Democratic territory.

In large part, this means plugging ahead: continuing to tout the successes of NCLB to the public and making sure that the implementation of the law moves forward.

For Democrats, fighting a law that they voted for is probably not the best use of their time between now and the next election. Democrats essentially gave away the farm when they supportedthen opposedNCLB. Being against the legislation now and for more federal education spending is not likely to work politically.

For administrators, having the luxury of looking at the big picture over the next couple of years will be difficult, given that some of NCLB's tougher provisions are only now coming online. These include districts being rated and not being allowed to provide their own supplemental tutoring; annual testing for science; increased numbers of schools not meeting federal standards as minimum requirements are raised; andmost dramaticallythe required closing or conversion of failing schools.

Given the predictable clamor that will result, it will be important to remember that implementation and oversight of federal education laws typically fades during second administrations, and that nonstatutory solutions are always possible. States and districts have already found numerous ways to soften the impact of the law. Further relaxation of some NCLB provisions could come from the U.S. Department of Education in 2005.

Heads up

The two most immediate challenges for educators are the upcoming reauthorizations of Head Start and the Higher Education Act. Regarding Head Start, the president advocates focusing more on literacy skills and coordinating with state programs, while Democrats are generally still working off old-school talking points in favor of increasing teachers' salaries and fully funding the program. On the Higher Education Act, neither side has thus far shown much vision on key issues such as teacher preparation.

Most important, Democrats and others opposed to NCLB will need to develop a coherent set of proposals for 2007. Stalwarts like class-size reduction and school construction are unlikely to fly during these tight budgetary times. Universal preschool and creating small high schools are not really comprehensive solutions. A new visionnot belatedly defeating NCLB legislationis the new reality.

Failure Is Not an Option: Interview with Rod Paige
Leading the charge for No Child Left Behind, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige wants to hold schools accountable for results. We spoke with him about what the new federal education reform will mean for your schools

10 Things You Always Wanted To Know About Data-Driven Decision Making
Everyone's talking about D3M. Use this guide to help prevent all that data from driving you nuts.

Plugged In
In a number of communities, refurbished school and city buses are taking technology to the streets. In places like Denver, Hawaii, and Akron, Ohio, these wheeled wonders are making it easier to integrate technology into the classroom.

ONLINE ACTIVITY	Election 2008: Kid Reporters Blog the Debates Scholastic Kid Reporters blog the 2008 presidential and vice presidential debates.