Trigger Warning: NCLB/ESEA Reauthorization! It Impinges on My Safe Space.
TRIGGER WARNING: When the government does not follow the law, ignores research/data, and enacts policies based on theories which reward crony capitalists, it doesn’t make me feel safe and I demand such policies resulting from such behavior to cease.
Such a demand is effective for college students to accomplish their agenda, so it should work for me and other taxpayers who feel marginalized and don’t like the education reform put forth by politicians, bureaucrats and NGOs. Neal McCluskey writes in NCLB Compromise Looking Pretty Bad:
Is pre-kindergarten part of elementary and secondary education? By definition, no. But according topreliminary reports about what is in a compromise to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act – really, the latest iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – a preschool “competitive grant” program will be added to the law. And that’s just one of several troubling items that will reportedly be in the final legislation.One hallmark of good lawmaking are laws that are easily understood by the people, and larding on lots of items not germane to the topic of a law is one way to move away from that democratic ideal. Adding pre-k to the ESEA lards on, though as I’ll discuss in a moment, apparently the preschool addition isn’t all that will heavily complicate the legislation.The bigger problem with expanding federal funding and reach on preschool is that the evidence is preschoolhas few if any lasting benefits, at least that have been rigorously documented for any large, modern efforts. Infamously, that includes Head Start and Early Head Start, which the federal government’s ownstudieshave found to be largely impotent, and in the case of Early Head Start, potentially detrimental to some groups. The compromise would apparently also keep the 21st Century Community Learning Centersprogram, which federal research has also shown to be impotent or even counterproductive, but at least it isk-12.The second major strike against this compromise, assuming the early reporting is correct, is that it will apparently be very complex. This is a big problem: Not only is complicated legislation inaccessible to the public, it can enable ambitious executives to exploit impenetrability and essentially write law through regulation. And if we have learned any lesson from the Obama administration’s NCLB waivers – and theTrigger Warning: NCLB/ESEA Reauthorization! It Impinges on My Safe Space. » Missouri Education Watchdog:
