Michael Gerson: Bipartisan deal on education costs students
President Barack Obama shakes hands with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a co-sponsor of the Every Student Succeeds Act, at the bill’s signing on Dec. 10. EVAN VUCCI The Associated Press
The nation’s capital is experiencing something of a thaw in polarization and partisanship. And the largest iceberg that has broken free is the Every Student Succeeds Act, the most consequential education reform in the past 15 years.
James Kegley
Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee, called it a “Christmas present” to American children. President Barack Obama proclaimed it a “Christmas miracle.” The president of the American Federation of Teachers said the law marks “a new day in public education.”
What does this mean for students? In 2001, No Child Left Behind, the last major federal education reform, mandated yearly testing in the basics of reading and math for children in third through eighth grades. Schools were required to show yearly progress for students of every background (including every racial background). If a school consistently failed, it was required to implement reforms and, in the worst cases, hire new teachers and reorganize. The law set the utopian goal that every child should be “proficient” in reading and math by 2014.
The whole thing was a mess from the start. Failing schools didn’t like to be labeled failures, which made administrators feel as though they were, like, you know, failing or something. Many teachers didn’t like the relentless emphasis on testing, which ate into their time for the unmeasurable joys of learning. Gov. Jerry Brown of California spoke for many when he recalled the formative prep school experience of an exam that consisted entirely of one question, asking students to give their impressions of a green leaf. “You can’t put that on a standardized test,” he explained.
The Every Student Succeeds Act ends the backseat driving of the federal government in education policy. State and local officials will now be free to set academic goals and to determine if schools are meeting them. While the law still mandates consequences for the worst-performing schools, states will determine what those consequences are. Student testing will still take place, but it won’t mean as much.
California, for example, is so happy to be free from the tyranny of testing that it has suspended the California High School Exit Examination and ordered schools to retroactively reward diplomas to students who failed the test during the past decade. It has also suspended its Academic Performance Index, which allowed parents to see how the test scores achieved by their local schools compared with those of other schools. In California, accountability will now be imposed according to “multiple measures” in eight “priority areas,” leaving parents entirely mystified about the actual performance of their local school.
The Every Student Succeeds Act is a win-win-win for everyone who counts. Most Republicans are pleased that the federal role in enforcing educational standards has been effectively abolished. Many teachers are pleased to see lower stakes on standardized tests. States and localities are pleased that they can declare all their schools successful, or at least to make accountability a fuzzy, gentle, toothless friend.
The problem? We have some experience in how schools operate in the absence ofMichael Gerson: Bipartisan deal on education costs students | The Sacramento Bee: