Honey, When Did the
Feds Take over the Kids’ School?
By Neal McCluskey
This article appeared in The Detroit News on August 12,
2010.
There’s a revolution happening, and you probably don’t even
know it. While you’ve been worrying about wars, spills and bailouts, Washington
has been taking over your schools.
Already, more than 30 states, including Michigan, have
capitulated to national mathematics and language arts standards, and several
more are likely to do so. And amazingly, almost no one’s heard about it. But
that’s exactly what standardizers, who know national standards’ fatal flaws,
want.
The immediate impetus for this has been the “Race to the Top,”
a federal competition for $4.35 billion in federal funds. Adopting standards
created by something called the Common Core State Standards Initiative is
crucial for states to compete.
Much more credit, though, goes to the No Child Left Behind Act, the
reviled 2002 law that requires states to implement standards and tests, and
progress toward full math and reading “proficiency” by 2014.
NCLB made seemingly tough “accountability” demands so that
politicians could look uncompromising on bad schools. So the same politicians
could appear to pay homage to local control, however, it left states to write
their own standards, tests, and definitions of proficiency. The result
predictably, has been low, but highly variable, state definitions of
proficiency. It’s much easier to set low bars than push kids over high ones.
To remedy this, standardizers want to force states to use
uniform, high standards. In the context of NCLB it makes some sense, and has
likely muted criticism of the standards drive.
Unfortunately, there is another, much more disturbing reason
that national standards have been flying under the radar: Stealth is essential
for its proponents to succeed.
The last national standards push was in the 1990s, and it
disintegrated almost the moment proposed federal standards were released.
Everyone, it seemed, was paying attention, and every diverse American found
something in the very detailed standards to hate.
Avoiding a similar fate explains why the CCSSI furnished
only mathematics and language arts standards, and why the latter identify
almost no specific works students must read. Math is relatively
uncontroversial, as is English — if you don’t prescribe any actual readings.
The big problems are that focusing on just two subjects
threatens to narrow the curriculum, while dodging essential reading threatens
to hollow it out. Do more, though, and Americans might have something of
substance to grab onto.
The second key to keeping things hush-hush has been to
deceive the public about what — and who — is driving the standards. Contrary to
proponents’ incessant refrain, standardization has been neither “state led” nor
“voluntary,” and it’s the heavy hand of the super-unpopular federal government
that’s shoving everything along.
While creation of the Common Core was spearheaded by
associations of governors and state education chiefs, those groups do not
represent individual states. Meanwhile, the National Conference of State
Legislatures opposes national standards.
Of course, many state school boards have adopted the
standards, but they might just be happily passing the standards buck. Much more
importantly, thanks to Race to the Top and Obama administration plans to
connect national standards to even bigger piles of money, adoption is no more
“voluntary” than adhering to NCLB or the minimum drinking age. If states want
federal dollars, which were taken from their citizens to begin with, they must
do as they’re told.
Finally, to keep the public from grasping what’s happening,
standardizers have rushed adoption of the Common Core standards. They were released on
June 2, and Race
to the Top required adoption just two months later.
The truth about national standards explains the need to
evade serious scrutiny. Despite claims about needing national standards to
compete in the world economy, or all countries that outperform us having
national standards, the research reveals that, all else equal, countries with
national standards do no better than those without. It also reveals that the
freer the education system, the better.
It’s not hard to understand why. Government schooling is
almost always controlled by the people it employs because they are the most
motivated to be involved in education politics. And like most people, they
would prefer as little outside accountability as possible. Conversely, more
freedom means more competition, and that means real accountability — answering
to customers — as well as constant innovation.
So why are national curriculum standards the biggest federal
takeover you’ve never heard of? Because they need silence to survive. And
here’s another big secret: Unless we do something now, national tests are
coming next.
No Child Left Behind Act
Margaret
Spellings was the architect for the No Child Left Behind Act, the secretary
for the U.S. Department of Education, is the president of the George W. Bush Foundation, the
president of the George W. Bush
Presidential Center, the commissioner for the Leading Education by Advancing Digital Commission, and the U.S.
program advisory panel member for the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation.
Note: John A. Boehner
was a sponsor for the No Child Left
Behind Act, is the speaker for the U.S.
House of Representatives, and a member of the Burning Tree Club.
Jack
Valenti was a member of the Burning
Tree Club, and a trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank).
Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the Brookings Institution
(think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think tank),
the Brookings Institution (think tank), and Demos.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and a contributor
for the American
Bridge 21st Century.
Frederic V. Malek
is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), the founder &
board member for the American Action
Network, and a member of the Alfalfa
Club.
Hispanic
Leadership Network is an offshoot of the American Action Network.
Jeb
Bush is an advisory committee member for the Hispanic Leadership Network, a member of the Alfalfa Club, a supporter for the Common Core educational standards, George W. Bush’s brother, and George
H.W. Bush’s son.
George
W. Bush is Jeb Bush’s brother, married
to Laura Bush, George H.W. Bush’s son, and a member of the Alfalfa Club.
Laura
Bush is married to George W. Bush,
a director at the George W. Bush
Foundation, a director at the George
W. Bush Presidential Center, and a trustee at the Southern Methodist University.
George
H.W. Bush is Jeb Bush & George W. Bush’s father, a member of
the Alfalfa Club, and a member of
the Burning Tree Club.
John
A. Boehner is a member of the Burning
Tree Club, the speaker for the U.S.
House of Representatives, and was a sponsor for the No Child Left Behind Act.
Alan
D. Feld was a trustee at the Southern
Methodist University, and is a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.
Vernon E. Jordan
Jr. is a senior counsel for Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, an honorary trustee at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), Valerie
B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a trustee at the Institute of International
Education, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg
(think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Valerie B. Jarrett
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, the senior adviser for the Barack
Obama administration, and her great uncle is Vernon E. Jordan Jr.
Lee
C. Bollinger is a trustee at the Institute
of International Education, and a commissioner for the Leading Education by Advancing Digital
Commission.
Margaret
Spellings is a commissioner for the Leading
Education by Advancing Digital Commission, the president of the George W. Bush Foundation, the
president of the George W. Bush
Presidential Center, the U.S. program advisory panel member for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was
the secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, and the architect
for the No Child Left Behind Act.
Race to the Top
is a grant program from the U.S. Department of Education, and encourages
the adoption of the Common Core
educational standards.
Kevin Jennings
was the assistant deputy secretary for the U.S.
Department of Education, and founder
& executive director the founder & executive director for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
John
I. Wilson is a director at the Gay,
Lesbian and Straight Education Network, and was an executive director for
the National Education Association.
Demos
was a funder for the National Education
Association.
American
Bridge 21st Century was a contributor for the National Education Association.
Sandor
Straus was a contributor for the American
Bridge 21st Century, and is a trustee at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.
No comments:
Post a Comment