I just finished reading a book about the radical change in American public education policy: No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005, by Patrick J. McGuinn.

Here is a brief summary of his findings, so you don’t have to read the entire book if you don’t have the time.

Beginning in the 1960’s, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was created during the Johnson Administration as part of the Great Society. This marked a significant increase in federal involvement in public education. Whereas public education was traditionally the jurisdiction of the states, the federal government now became a player. The policy regime resulting from the ESEA, the equity regime, was centered on the idea that the federal government had the responsibility to provide financial assistance to underprivileged students. The focus was on policy inputs. After the Nation at Risk report in the early 1980’s, a focusing event, public education began to increase in salience as an issue needing to be addressed by government. National-level politicians, wanting to capitalize on this increase in salience, broadened the scope of conflict to the federal level. This marked the beginning of the end of the equity regime. The preferred policy from ideological centrists and the broader public was standards-based reform. However, because this reform did not appeal to some strong groups from within both Republican and Democrat constituencies, it fell prey to institutional difficulties inherent in creating policy change. Once pressure to solve the perceived public education crisis peaked in 2000, a bipartisan effort overcame these obstacles and No Child Left Behind was passed in 2002. The new policy regime focused on government responsibility to educate all students, and to monitor educational outputs through standards-based accountability measures.

The findings indicate, and the author argues, that education policy is very difficult to change. It took twenty years (from start to finish) to dismantle one paradigm and install another. For those who are unhappy with the status quo being No Child Left Behind (NCLB), this is not good news.

I am not afraid to speak up and criticize NCLB. Some parts are worse than others, in my humble opinion, but it really is a package deal. The use of standardized testing, and using results to justify punitive “accountability” measures, is something I’m sure will pop up frequently in my future posts, and not in a positive tone. But if I take seriously McGuinn’s findings, the future is likely to be filled with standardized testing. Moreover, changing the status quo will require not just the realization that standardized testing does not accomplish what NCLB hoped it would; it will also require large public concern about the state of public education. NCLB came about only after public education became the most important issues in America (measured by opinion polls). I do not think we will see another paradigm shift for a long time, especially given the salience of economic issues which does not show much sign of decline.