After causing a furor by jocularly calling the National
Education Association a “terrorist organization” at a meeting with
U.S. governors on Monday, Education Secretary Rod Paige issued this
“apology”:
It was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the
obstructionist scare tactics the NEA’s Washington lobbyists have
employed against No Child Left Behind’s historic education reforms.
I also said, as I have repeatedly, that our nation’s teachers, who
have dedicated their lives to service in the classroom, are the
real soldiers of democracy, whereas the NEA’s high-priced
Washington lobbyists have made no secret that they will fight
against bringing real, rock-solid improvements in the way we
educate all our children regardless of skin color, accent or where
they live. But, as one who grew up on the receiving end of
insensitive remarks, I should have chosen my words
better.
Clearly, Paige has no shortage of pugnacity. But to make such a
tin-eared remark in the first place shows a certain
naiveté— the same naiveté, perhaps, that would lead
one to support a federal education initiative like the No Child
Left Behind Act.
NCLB requires testing each year in grades three through eight;
schools get more federal money if they fail to make adequate
progress toward meeting a proficiency standard for two years in a
row. Since states design their own tests and set their own minimum
proficiency levels, there have been vast discrepancies in
performance from state to state, making it difficult to gauge how
efficiently the money is actually being spent.
If a school that receives Title I federal funds for
disadvantaged students fails two years in a row, students are
supposed to be allowed to switch to a different school within their
district. But surveys show that fewer that 2 percent of those
eligible to take advantage of the choice provision transferred to a
different school last fall, and more than half of those who
requested transfers were turned down by state officials, generally
in violation of the spirit but not the letter of the law.
Meanwhile, some award-winning schools have faced the
embarrassment of being declared failing, and states like Florida,
Louisiana, North Carolina and Kentucky, that have seen test scores
rise impressively under state-level reforms, nonetheless have seen
a majority of their schools found failing under NCLB.
NCLB PASSED THE HOUSE 381-41, with more Democrat than Republican
ayes. The small minority consisted largely of conservative
Republicans unhappy with a bill featuring spending hikes and
mandates on local schools with no provision for private school
vouchers. Dennis Kucinich voted for the bill, as did John Kerry and
John Edwards in the Senate, but that hasn’t stopped Democrats from
condemning its implementation almost universally, on the campaign
trail and off. Even Ted Kennedy, whose support was crucial to the
bill’s passage, now blames Republicans for underfunding it — never
mind that federal education spending has increased 48% under the
Bush Administration compared to 15% from 1990 to 2000.
Of course, demanding more spending is what Democrats do. More
remarkable is the sudden enthusiasm for local control. In the
current National Review, Kate O’Beirne writes that Rep.
Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) pointed her to a Howard Dean quote
strangely reminiscent of a Republican critiques of federal
education spending in the '90s: “Michigan schools are a lot better
off being run by people in Michigan than by bureaucrats like George
Bush and Tom DeLay.” (DeLay voted against NCLB, but candidate Dean
never felt bound by anything so pedestrian as the facts.)
Democrats’ change of heart on NCLB, it almost goes without
saying, is attributable to their deep ties to the teachers unions.
Paige’s scorn for the NEA may be understandable — union-backed
salary schedules that make it almost impossible to reward good
teachers and punish bad ones are among the largest barriers to real
reform of the school system. But in the case of NCLB, unions are
reflecting the bitter complaints of their members.
HERE IN MARYLAND, a state with fairly stringent standards, teachers
and administrators have been under intense pressure to prepare for
the state exams that children are taking this week and next. At
some schools that face the prospect of failing for a second year,
administrators have canceled extracurricular activities to allow
more study time, even taking away children’s gym and recess. The
craziest story I’ve heard is that kindergartners at one Title I
school in Baltimore County are being taught songs about the state
test to cheer on the third through eighth graders.
Small wonder some NEA members are at their wits’ end. Given that
the unions sometimes choose self-perpetuation over improving the
lot of their members, as with the preference for smaller class
sizes over separate classes for special-needs children (the latter
is a more cost-effective way to improve learning efficiency and
makes teachers’ jobs easier, but the former creates more
dues-paying union members), perhaps the NEA should be applauded for
in this instance representing members’ concerns.
By the time NCLB passed, the majority of states already had some
reform based on testing and accountability in place. The tendency
has been for standards to be relaxed in the face of political
pressure. But at least with state-level reforms, negotiations over
standards are between state officials and the teachers unions; NCLB
puts both of those actors on the offensive against the federal
government.
The mess created by No Child Left Behind demonstrates once again
what we already knew: Not all problems are best handled by
Washington.
