by Kathleen Jeskey
Jonah Edelman’s recent in
The Daily Beast is a classically beautiful batch of snake oil. The thing that
makes it so beautiful is that it combines just enough truth and righteous
indignation (over things about which one should be righteously indignant) with
the deception of a slick ad campaign to make it palatable and easy to swallow.
But like any classic snake oil, we shouldn’t expect it to
offer relief from the problems it purports to cure.
Edelman begins by informing us that Congress may be about to
actually do something and rewrite the long-overdue-for-renewal Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA) known in its current form as No Child Left
Behind. Those of us who have been waiting and hoping for a reauthorization and
renewal of ESEA since 2007, one that might correct the errors in its
incarnation as NCLB, begin to feel hopeful.
Next he invokes the history of ESEA, which has its original roots
in Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and was born during
the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. And clearly, we continue to face those
same issues today. Once again, there are those who wish to deny assistance to
people who live in poverty and blame the poor rather than the system that
creates their living conditions. Once again, there are those who would like to
have a separate schooling system for their children. Once again we have those
who are trying to ensure that all children have access to equal educational
opportunity no matter their address, income, or the color of their skin. But
today, those lines of conflict are not as clearly drawn. They have become quite
blurry, and some of us believe that might not be an accident.
Edelman continues to speak about NCLB and even defend it
somewhat, since after all, it “exposed grossly unequal educational
outcomes and motivated a range of efforts across the country to address the low
performance of low-income children and children of color”. He then says that
the law was nonetheless flawed, and particularly in its stated goal of 100%
proficiency by 2014, which he rightfully mocks as ridiculous.
But then come the corporate reform talking points: “The
federal government has offered incentives”; they want to “offer
more choices to parents”; they want to “strengthen teaching
through more accurate educator evaluations.” We
are reminded that these reform ideas are all “state-based”,
however. And of course, we need more rigor in there somewhere.
He then returns to a statement with which I and many others
agree: that there must be some accountability to federal law by state and local
schools, since without “meaningful federal oversight” many
children will be put at risk of not receiving an equal educational opportunity.
However, I and many others are beginning to wonder if the current brand of
federal oversight is capable of providing the equal opportunity that should
indeed be its responsibility. It seems to be working in the opposite direction.
I believe the definition of “meaningful” must
be what Mr. Edelman and I disagree on.
And then comes the deception. “There’s also talk by states’ rights advocates
of no longer requiring annual testing by states, which would deny parents and
educators valuable information about whether students are on track, reduce the
ability to measure and improve teacher quality, and make it harder for
administrators to know how schools are doing and when they need to intervene.
Ironically, this is being proposed just as ‘smarter’
assessments come online that will more accurately measure student learning,
including their ability to think critically, solve problems, and write.”
Really? “States’ rights
advocates”? Not teachers
and parents. It’s those “states’ rights
advocates”. The ones who
want “little to no federal oversight”. I know those people exist, but Edelman
paints everyone who disagrees with annual high stakes testing for every student
in America on the same set of standards with an incredibly broad brush. And
then he’s right back to the corporate reform talking points: How
will parents and teachers know if kids are on track without those tests? How
will we measure teacher quality without those tests? How will we know how our
schools are doing without those tests? And come on! The tests are “smarter” now.
I bet he thinks they’re more “balanced” as
well.
Clearly we have known since at least the 1960s that children who
live in poverty need more support. When will we stop measuring that fact and
start to actually do something about the roots of poverty? Clearly there
continue to be those who wish to deny the civil rights of all children. But
just who are those people? Are they the ones who believe that the federal
government should serve and support communities and require a democratic
process for decisions made about our schools? Or are they the ones who are
attempting to sell us snake oil, a Common Cure for what ails us?
He ends by mentioning the sign that famously sat on Harry Truman’s
desk: “The Buck Stops Here.” Sadly, today that sign would probably
be sitting over the door to the banks where the snake oil salesmen deposit
their money.