Insurmountable Obstacles The Evolution of Education Policy and Politics in the United States, 1950 t

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Insurmountable Obstacles?The Evolution of
Education Policy and Politics in the United
States, 1950 to 2007

• William Lowe BoydPenn State University
• Invited Presentation to the Politics of Education
  Association at the Annual Meeting of the
  
• American Educational Research Association,
  Chicago, Illinois, April 12, 2007

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How Much Have Things Changed?

• Looking back over my years in the field of
  education, Im amazed at the changes that have
  occurred.
  
• That will never happen often DID happen!
• What accounts for such remarkable and
  unanticipated changes?

3
IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

• The Origins of Paradigm Shifts
• The ideas of economists and political
  philosophers, both when they are right and when
  they are wrong, are more powerful than is
  commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled
  by little else. Practical men, who believe
  themselves to be quite exempt from any
  intellectual influences, are usually the slaves
  of some defunct economist.
• continued, next page

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IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

• Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the
  air, are distilling their frenzy from some
  academic scribbler of a few years back... Sooner
  or later, it is ideas, not vested interests,
  which are dangerous for good or evil.
• -- John Maynard Keynes (1936)

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IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

• "The real difficulty in changing any enterprise
  lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping
  from the old ones. -- John Maynard
  Keynes

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How Paradigms Shift Ideas Matter

• Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
  Revolutions (1962)
  
• Mark Blyth, Great Transformations Economic Ideas
  and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century
  (2002)

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What Have Been the Big Ideas?

• Legacy of Progressives model of public
  education
  
• Efforts toward the reform of a reform (Tyack)
• Free market and rational choice theory critiques
  of big government and public bureaucracies
  
• Kenneth Arrow (1951) Anthony Downs (1957)
  Milton Friedman (1962) Buchanan Tullock
  (1962)
  
• Criticism of public agencies, their lack of a
  bottom line and accountability
  
• Fueled later rise of Neoconservative movement

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What Have Been the Big Ideas?

• Americas individualism and anemic welfare state
• Public education carries too much of the weight
  (Hochschild Scovronick, 1995 Rothstein Out of
  Balance, 2002)
  
• Neoconservatism successful conservative
  think-tank effort since 1973 to sell the free
  market and critique of big government (Blyth,
  2002, 156-161)

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What Have Been the Big Ideas?

• The Cold War and Sputnik crisis
• The schools were to blame for the Soviets getting
  ahead of us in space
  
• NDEA of 1958
• Civil rights, equality, and liberation movements
• Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
• I have a dream - M. L. King (1963)
• Colemans Equality of Educational Opportunity
  Report (1966)
  
• Controversial finding that schools dont make a
  difference
  
• Resistance to this finding leads, in time, to the
  no excuses idea that schools make all the
  difference
  
• Embraced by both left (Education Trust) right
  (The Heritage Foundation) Rothstein, 2002

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What Have Been the Big Ideas?

• The short-lived Great Society War on
  Poverty (1964-1968)
  
• Disillusionment reaction A neoconservative is
  a liberal who was mugged by reality - Irving
  Kristol
  
• A Nation at Risk (1983)
• The Sputnik of the 1980s the Toyota Problem
  
  
• Our schools are endangering us!
• The economy improved in the Clinton years, but
  schools received no credit.
  
• Excellence and choice
• Chester Finn - father of the excellence
  movement
  
• Boyd Kerchner (1988) PEA Yearbook
• Chubb Moe (1990) Politics, Markets, Americas
  Schools

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What Have Been the Big Ideas?

• Accountability and standards
• Systemic reform (Smith ODay, 1991, PEA Yrbk)
• America 2000 - 6 National Goals - 1992
• Goals 2000 Educate America Act of 1994
• No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
• Call for National Standards

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What Have Been the Big Ideas?

• A flat world, free trade and globalization
• Americas schools as the front line in the
  battle for our economic future, a battle we are
  losing
  
• High skills or low wages? OR
• High skills AND low wages?
• The public schools, somehow, have to compensate
  for globalization (e.g., prepare students for
  jobs that cant be outsourced)
  
• Global warming and the environmental crisis
• Could lead to a redefinition of the economy and
  future toward which policy and education should
  move us
  
• This would be a really BIG change!

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IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

• Reflecting on what has happened
• Insurmountable Obstacles are Not as
  Insurmountable as the Appear to Be
  
• Amazing changes have occurred in American
  education policy politics since 1950
  
• These changes can be arrayed along continuums
  seldom fully achieved, with substantial variation
  depending upon locale

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Changes in the study of educational politics

• A shift from a focus in the 1960s on the
  separation of education from politics (its
  uniqueness as an autonomous sphere of
  governance) and on its domination by
  professionals within public education to
  developments that have nullified both
  propositions
• Politicians (mayors governors) and external
  actors reasserting control over education
  
• Education too important to be controlled just by
  educators
  
• Professionals challenged held accountable via
  testing, national standards, NCLB requirements
  

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Changes in field of education

• From a focus on inputs to outcomes
• From a logic of confidence to a logic of
  consequences
  
• From weak teachers organizations to potent
  unions
  
• From students teachers with few rights little
  power to activist students teachers
  
• From top-down management to shared leadership
• From lockstep seniority ladders and all teachers
  are equal to differentiated staffing and
  compensation of teachers

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Changes in field of education

• From local control of K-12 education policy to
  increasing state and federal control of
  education
  
• From no federal control to NCLB!
• From local control of the curriculum to national
  standards
  
• From disconnected goals, curricula, and tests to
  systemic alignment
  
• From report cards on kids to report cards on
  schools, districts, and states
  
• From schools dont make a difference to
  (equally invalid idea that) schools make all the
  difference (Rothstein, 2002)

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Changes in field of education

• From acceptance of the achievement gap to
  disaggregated AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) with
  teeth
  
• From opinion-based to evidence-based, data-driven
  decision-making evaluation studies,
  scientific controlled trials
  
• From professional control and restricted access
  to information to increasingly open systems and
  growing influence and control for external actors
  and citizens

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Changes in field of education

• From education as a back-burner issue to one of
  great political importance
  
• From the separation of education from politics to
  increasing political control
  
• the reform of a reform (Tyack)
• Mayors taking over use of non-educators as
  CEOs
  
• Institutional change in urban school governance
• From temporary windows of opportunity for
  education reform to perpetual reform
  
• A Nation at Risk - a brief window of
  opportunity?
  
• The Issue-Attention Cycle - Anthony Downs

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Changes in field of education

• From public education as a near monopoly to
  diversified school choice
  
• From on-site schooling to cyber schooling
• the disintermediation of public education
• From public education as a sacred cow to a
  sweeping re-examination of the concept of public
  education and of the means for its delivery
  
• Why We Still Need Public Schools Public
  Education for the Common Good Center on
  Education Policy (CEP)
  

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The First Big Surprise ESEA Growth of Federal
Control

• Between 1862 and 1963, Congress considered
  unrestricted general aid to schools thirty-six
  times and rejected it thirty-six times (Kirst,
  2004).
• Munger Fenno (1962), in National Politics and
  Federal Aid to Education, could not see how a
  Federal Aid bill could be passed.
  
• The racial, religious federal control issues
  seemed insurmountable.
  
• Yet, in 1965 ESEA was enacted.

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How ESEA happened

• Assassination of JFK
• 1964 election gave LBJ a huge Democratic majority
  in Congress
  
• Passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964 muted the
  racial issue
  
• White House worked deals to gain Catholic and NEA
  acceptance of a federal aid bill.
  
• Major focus of ESEA on poor children (Title I)
  reflects influence of Michael Harringtons The
  Other America (1962)
  

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Evolution of ESEA

• Title VI of ESEA of 1965 said nothing in the Act
  authorized the federal government to exercise
  any direction, supervision or control over
  education.
• Yet, in 2001, ESEA was reauthorized as NCLB,
  violating every pledge in Title VI
  
• LBJ would have been amazed by NCLB (Manna, 2007,
  pp. 4 117).
  
• Yet, Sundquist (1968, p. 216) recognized ESEAs
  potential for an expanding federal role.

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A Second Surprise The Paradigm ShiftFrom Inputs
to Outcomes Accountability

• A far-reaching paradigm shift, only recently
  fully appreciated.
  
• From a logic of confidence to a logic of
  consequences
  
• Boyd Immegart, 1979 Boyd Crowson, 1981
• This shift has changed the requirements of
  policy, practice, research
  
• See James Guthrie (2006) Multi-Purpose
  Education Doctorates No Longer Palatable.
  
• NCLBs focus on outcomes and requirements for
  scientific research and evidence.

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A Second Surprise The Paradigm ShiftFrom Inputs
to Outcomes Accountability

• Most changes, especially in governance, have had
  little effect on the technical core of schools
  teaching learning.
  
• The outcomes emphasis could improve teaching
  learning, if more beneficial testing and
  accountability schemes can be devised.
  
• Eva Bakers 2007 AERA presidential address The
  End(s) of Testing

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A Third Surprise The Choice Excellence
Movement is here to stay

• From a glimmer in Milton Friedmans mind in the
  1950s to today.
  
• Still unpopular with many public educators, but
  less so than when Kerchner I published our 1988
  Yearbook.
  
• Then not politically correct to discuss school
  choice as an option -- This was abetting the
  enemy.
  
• Assumption seemed to be it will go away if
  ignored
  
• Choice still considered traitorous in some
  circles, despite collapse of belief in The Once
  Best System
  

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Choice Excellence

• Work by many think tanks and policy entrepreneurs
  to advance the choice idea (Mintrom, 2000)
  
• Friedman Foundation Free to Choose book video
  (1977)
  
• Joe Nathan Ted Kolderie in Minnesota
• Chubb Moes Politics, Markets, and Americas
  Schools, published by Brookings (1990), helped
  legitimate the idea
  

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Choice Excellence

• Charter schools far more popular than voucher
  plans
  
• Privately funded vouchers to demonstrate the
  idea
  
• Constitutional barriers not insurmountable
• Charters becoming part of urban systems
• Philadelphia Los Angeles
• KIPP to go to scale in Houston
• From 8 KIPP schools with 1,700 students to 42
  schools with 21,000 students in 10 years

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A Fourth Surprise Welcome to National Standards

• From the sacred cow of local control to national
  standards
  
• Belief in political impossibility of national
  standards
  
• From de facto national standards to real national
  standards
  
• Nationalizing influences The folklore of local
  control - Roald Campbell (1959)
  
• National Standards getting steadily increasing
  attention in Education Week

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A Fifth Surprise in the Making? Differentiated
staffing compensation

• From all teachers are equal to some are more
  equal than others
  
• National Board Certified teachers
• Teacher performance pay
• Allen Oddens efforts
• http//cpre.wceruw.org/tcomp/
• Overview by Heneman et al. (2007)
• New center asks Does merit pay work? Education
  Week (2007, March 19)
  
• Will teachers unions ever accept this stuff?
• Denver case

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Conclusion Education policy developments can be
unpredictable

• Dont be too quick to assume Thatll never
  happen.
  
• The moral of this story can be drawn from James
  Thurbers fable, The Unicorn in the Garden.
  
• His payoff line is Don't count your boobies
  until theyre hatched.
  
• (http//english.glendale.cc.ca.us/unicorn1.html)

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