President-elect Barack Obama’s first and hardest task on education will be to “restore the broad bipartisan support it took to pass the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act,” says the Washington Post’s Maria Glod. “That consensus has splintered, with people on both sides of the aisle souring on the law as it is overdue for reauthorization in Congress,” she writes
“Forget the details of No Child Left Behind. The big challenge there is having to rebuild that bipartisan coalition,” said Gary Huggins, director of the Commission on No Child Left Behind, an independent effort of the Aspen Institute. “On the Democratic side you have people walking away from it because of union pushback. On the GOP side you have people walking away because this is too large a federal footprint.”
I’m not sure I agree with Huggins’ broad-brush analysis. Among educators, the consensus tends be “good goal/bad bill.” In the main, teachers remain supportive of the laudable aims of NCLB, but live day-to-day with the law’s unintended consequences. Contrary to popular opinion, teachers are not accountability-averse. But the narrowing of curriculum that has occurred under NCLB has too often made school a content-free, joyless grind for teachers and students. The key to restoring bipartisan support and getting teachers on board is getting accountability right.
One of my concerns about NCLB reauthorization is that so many “think tank” types seem to view educators as the enemy, and so inept that micromanaging by Washington is preferable to local control.
Andy Rotherham takes a different view in Eduwonk today. He objects to Newsweek’s recent claim that “the education community is badly split on the issue of how to hold teachers accountable.” His take: “The education community is badly split on WHETHER to hold teachers accountable.”
I’m more inclined to agree with you than with Eduwonk. Teachers want to be held accountable, but slipshod accountability structures can do more harm than good. Responsible educators want policymakers to get accountability right.