Federal Education Policy Research Articles

Invest in Early Childhood Education

We need expanded federal leadership in early education to develop an excellent, coherent, and equitable system. The authors recommend 13 ways for the government to develop a universal and sustained approach to early childhood education. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The federal government's role in early education has a long and contentious history. While the nature and amount of federal engagement has shifted in response to changing social, political, and economic needs, the lack of long-term planning or coordination has yielded an array of programs, dispersed across federal agencies and legislative committees, which begs for greater excellence, coherence, and equity in early childhood education. The history of American early education is one of changing roles and goals. From the privately funded Infant Schools for indigent families in the earliest days of the republic, to the federal government's foray into early childhood with Depression-era nursery schools, to more recent investments in Head Start, federal early education policies can best be understood as a series of responses to shifting social, economic, and political phenomena (Beatty 1981; Cahan 1989; Cohen 1996). Amid these changes, four durable polemics have shaped the federal response. First, American society has long questioned whether young children should be served outside their homes at all. From the nation's birth, the primacy and the privacy of the home were ideological mantras, forcing early education programs to legitimate their existence; such programs have never been considered an entitlement akin to K-12 education. Second, because public values haven't generally supported out-of-home, nonmaternal care, federal support for early education grew during times of national crises and declined as the crises ebbed, leaving early education bereft of three essential mainstays: vision, permanence, and infrastructure. Third, there has been an enduring ambivalence regarding which children should be served and how. Most public programs have targeted children from low-income families, while the private sector has served children from middle- and upper-income families. Leaving a legacy of services segregated by income, which often translates into quality differences, early education policy defies deeply held American values regarding the equal opportunity that all young children need in order to thrive and learn. Fourth, there is no consistent agreement about the mission of early education. Should early education focus on care as the day nurseries did? Should it focus on socialization and education as nursery schools purported to do? Although increasingly regarded as a false dichotomy because good early education does both, federal and state policy makers still must tussle with the question as they debate early education's departmental jurisdictions and funding amounts. 5 Cornerstones Recognizing this historical context and building on the past, we first recommend five cornerstones for American early education: * Keep early education voluntary before kindergarten. * Maintain a diverse delivery system with both public and private providers for both fiscal prudence and choice for parents. * Foster developmentally oriented pedagogy that stresses cognitive, language, social, emotional, and physical development for all children. * Honor linguistic, cultural, and programmatic diversity. * Conceptualize early education as a partnership among families, programs, and communities. Second, we see a need for expanded federal leadership and investments in early education. However, such investments must be guided by clearly defined roles for federal and state governments. These roles must frame and bound the public early childhood policy agenda. In addition to role clarity, the goals of federal intervention must be clear. Early education efforts should focus on advancing excellence, coherence, and equity. …

“We Thought They Had Forgotten Us”: Research, Policy, and Practice in the Education of Latino Immigrant Adults

This article discusses English-only policies as they relate to second language teaching for children and adults; explores popular perceptions and misconceptions about learning English; and discusses types of programs best suited for different students, depending on educational background. Examples from research and practice highlight the value of native language instruction in low-literate adults' acquisition of English, using a survey of the literature on English language acquisition and native language literacy. Links are made to current federal education policies with examples from practice. Programmatic use of English-only instruction is contrasted with bilingual and native language instruction.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND AND ITS EFFECTS ON LANGUAGE POLICY

The most recent federal education policy in the United States, titled No Child Left Behind (NCLB), was passed into law in 2001. High-stakes testing is the core of NCLB, as tests are used to hold each school, district, and state accountable for student performance, therein affording the federal government greater control over the constitutionally decentralized national system of U.S. education. Because the tests being used are administered in English, English language learners (ELLs) typically fail to meet the law's annual progress requirements, resulting in serious consequences for the students and their schools. This article reviews research about the effects of NCLB on language policies in education. Empirical studies show that the law—which is at face value merely an educational policy—is in actuality a de facto language policy. After explaining the law's assessment mandates, this article provides analyses of the wording of NCLB from a language policy perspective. It also reviews studies about the limitations of the required tests as instruments to carry out the law's demands, and about the effects of the law on instruction and the educational experiences of ELLs.

Considering alternatives for federal education policy in the United States: a critical perspective on No Child Left Behind

The pending reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the George W. Bush administration's iteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, provides an important opportunity to consider what federal education policy could be in the United States. In this paper, we explain how the rationalization of education, particularly of reading instruction, has led to the failure of NCLB, even on its own terms. Our analysis critiques the underlying assumptions of this policy and proposes different possibilities for education policy, particularly the potential for policy to: (1) provide possibilities for all citizens to engage in democratic life, (2) provide access to information, and (3) to embrace the complexities of learning and literacy.

The New Politics of Education

This article develops a framework, drawn from earlier work by education scholars, as well as broader theoretical insights on advocacy and policymaking developed by political scientists, for thinking about education politics in the post-No Child Left Behind era. The authors use this framework to examine the evolution of the national education policy arena over the past ten years. The authors describe the key political dynamics and actors which drove education policymaking at the national level for forty years after the passage of ESEA in 1965; and then explain the forces which transformed this educational status quo in the 1990s and led to the passage of NCLB in 2001. Finally, the article analyzes how the law itself has altered the national politics of education, including the growth and diversification of the think tank sector in the inter-reauthorization period. Implications for the future of federal education policy and politics are considered.

NCLB and California’s English language learners: The perfect storm

We argue here that the combination of U.S. federal education policy as embodied in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 with the passage of a California state initiative that required that “nearly all classroom instruction [be] in English … for a period not normally intended to exceed one year” in 1998 created a “perfect storm” for English Learners. English Learners are thus provided inadequate and incomprehensible academic instruction. Federal law, meanwhile, requires that all students, even if they do not speak English, be tested annually in English for academic progress, and their schools be sanctioned if progress is not sufficient. Whether such demands can legitimately be made on schools is an unsettled issue across the United States. California’s case should serve as an example to others that forcing students to be assessed in a language they do not fully comprehend violates principles of social justice wherever it is practiced.

High-stakes math tests: How No Child Left Behind leaves newcomer English language learners behind

The No Child Left Behind Act establishes federal education policy for the United States, with a heavy focus on accountability through high-stakes testing. Provisions specific to English language learners (ELLs) include the mandate for their inclusion in state math tests, even for newcomer students enrolled for less than one year. Most ELLs take their state math tests in English with few, if any, accommodations. This study provides an analysis of this policy through the case of fifth grade newcomer Cambodian students in a Texas middle school. A linguistic analysis reveals that the language demands of the state math test far exceeds the language demand of the math work the students were able to do in school (with assistance). A content analysis of the fourth grade math textbooks used in Cambodia and the Texas school district reveals the American textbook had a much higher degree of alignment with Texas math standards, and far exceeded the Cambodian textbook in terms of depth and breadth of mathematical concepts and math problems for students to practice newly learned concepts. We argue that these analyses provide strong evidence that the Cambodian newcomer students were not afforded an opportunity to learn grade-level content before the test, and that the language demands of the test are beyond reasonable for newcomer students. We conclude with a discussion of implications for needed changes to U.S. federal policy which account for the linguistic demands posed by math tests, and which provide students opportunities to learn expected math content before taking high-stakes tests.

Congress and the classroom: from the Cold War to "No Child Left Behind"

Contents Acknowledgments List of Tables Introduction: Conservatives and Liberals Go to School 1. How the Camel's Nose Got in the Tent: Historical Precedents for Federal Aid to Education 2. Was It Really About Sputnik? The National Defense Education Act of 1958 3. Lyndon Johnson's Billion-Dollar Baby: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 4. Civil Rights and Unfunded Mandates: The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 5. The House That Jimmy Built: The U.S. Department of Education 6. Standards-Based Reform Meets Federal Education Policy: The Goals 2000 Educate America Act 7. The No Child Left Behind Act and the Federal-Control Threat 8. Where Is Federal Education Policy Taking Us? References Index

Avoidable losses: High-stakes accountability and the dropout crisis.

In the state of Texas, whose standardized, high-stakes test-based accountability system became the model for the nation's most comprehensive federal education policy, more than 135,000 youth are lost from the state's high schools every year. Dropout rates are highest for African American and Latino youth, more than 60% for the students we followed. Findings from this study, which included analysis of the accountability policy in operation in high-poverty high schools in a major urban district, analysis of student-level data for more than 271,000 students in that district over a seven-year period under this policy, and extensive ethnographic analysis of life in schools under the policy, show that the state's high-stakes accountability system has a direct impact on the severity of the dropout problem. The study carries great significance for national education policy because its findings show that disaggregation of student scores by race does not lead to greater equity, but in fact puts our most vulnerable youth, the poor, the English language learners, and African American and Latino children, at risk of being pushed out of their schools so the school ratings can show "measurable improvement." High-stakes, test-based accountability leads not to equitable educational possibilities for youth, but to avoidable losses of these students from our schools.

Ten Thousand Democracies: Politics and Public Opinion in America's School Districts – By Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer School's in: Federalism and the National Education Agenda – By Paul Manna

Ten Thousand Democracies: Politics and Public Opinion in America's School Districts – By Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer School's in: Federalism and the National Education Agenda – By Paul Manna

The NEA is Fighting for NCLB Overhaul

ACOMPLEX federal law that has been on the books since 1965--upon which are based numerous beneficial programs that provide funding to our nation's education system through a range of complex mechanisms--cannot easily be cast aside as the Educator Roundtable recommends. The decision by the NEA not to support the repeal of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is made on a practical and realistic basis. Repealing laws is a lot more complex and involved than the Educator Roundtable implies. As almost 10,000 NEA members decided at our 2006 representative assembly, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the latest version of which is NCLB, does not warrant repeal. The law requires significant attention to its shortcomings in order to make it work on the ground--in America's classrooms. What the Educator Roundtable asserts is that NCLB is not working, and the NEA agrees wholeheartedly. Just because the NEA isn't advocating the impractical approach of repealing NCLB does not mean that we are standing on the sidelines. Indeed, I believe that the NEA and the Educator Roundtable want the same things from the federal government: a reduction in NCLB's single-minded, test-based, label-and-punish accountability system, coupled with the provision of funding for proven programs that make a difference, such as smaller class sizes and high-quality pre-K programs. The NEA is aggressively addressing the problems with the law in the way our members expect us to do. We are using our knowledge of the legislative process and our members' grassroots influence and political strength to advocate before Congress the changes that are needed to make federal education policy work the right way: to help students and educators improve teaching and learning. To this end, it has been the NEA's hope that this reauthorization of ESEA would finally offer an opportunity for a renewed, broad, and bold national discussion of how to improve and support public education. Simply put, this reauthorization is and should be about more than tweaking the NCLB portions of ESEA. It should be a comprehensive examination of whether federal policies follow what the research says about how children learn and what makes a successful school. This is the opportunity for a major course correction. Teachers care deeply about this process and its outcome because they will have lived for more than five years under a system that was crafted without enough of their input, that has proven to be unworkable, and that in too many cases has had negative, unintended consequences. They are counting on a thoughtful process this time and a bill that does not merely recognize the technical flaws of the statute but also addresses the conceptual and philosophical flaws of the entire current test-label-punish theory of education reform. To that end, the NEA is at the table, scrutinizing every proposal being put forward by Congress to ensure that the reauthorization does not continue a one-size-fits-all prescription from the federal level. Again, for us this reauthorization is about more than fixing the AYP (adequate yearly progress) requirements and other provisions of NCLB that have been problematic; it's about recognizing that providing a high-quality education to every student takes more than a measurement system. It's about sending a message to students that they are more than just test scores. We should care at least as much about whether a child graduates after receiving a comprehensive, high-quality education as we do about how he or she performs on a standardized test. We should be sending a message to educators that the art and practice of teaching must be about more than test preparation. If the only measures we really value are test scores, rather than some of the other indicators of a rich and challenging educational experience, then we will have missed the mark again about adequately serving and educating all children. …

NCLB's Transfer Policy and Court-Ordered Desegregation

The present article, a cross-case analysis, analyzes one aspect of the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that has generated conflict between the U.S. Department of Education and the federal court system. The conflicts arose between the courts' oversight of desegregation and the implementation of the public school choice mandates of NCLB in two south-eastern school systems, Richmond County, Georgia, and Pinellas County, Florida. The sources used are interviews by the author with each system's school superintendent and school board attorney, as well as official documents, including court orders and correspondence between county and federal officials. The conflicts not only raise constitutional legal issues but highlight the problem of local consent and bargaining in the implementation of federal education policy and illustrate the changing nature of federal authority with respect to desegregation. The two cases contribute to the knowledge base about the judicial implementation of federal education policies.

Heritage Language Programs in the Era of English-Only and No Child Left Behind

There is a growing recognition of the need for Americans who are proficient in languages other than English; however, there is a great disconnect between these needs, state English-only education policies, and current federal education policy as realized through the No Child Left Behind Act (NLCB) of 2001. These policies are moving the country in the opposite direction in terms of the needs for heritage language programs which can address students' and the country's linguistic needs. Drawing on eight years of research, this article presents the cases of a variety of in-school and after school Heritage language programs serving Khmer (Cambodian), Spanish, and Native American heritage language learners from California, Arizona, and Texas which have been eliminated or substantially weakened due to current federal and state language and education policies. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for needed changes to policy which will encourage, rather than discourage, quality heritage language programs.

No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005

No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005. By Patrick J. McGuinn. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. 320p. $40.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is an attempt by the federal government to regulate educational policy in the 50 states. By imposing on states a set of standards, benchmarks of yearly progress, and imposing sanctions on failing schools, the U.S. Department of Education has made a significant step from being more than a federal bully pulpit and a perch for fading politicians to a genuine ministry of education. This is ironic because the U.S. Constitution reserves to the states educational policy, except when it comes to enforcing civil rights. The strong bipartisan support for NCLB is a political, policy, and constitutional sea change in American history. How—and more importantly, why—did this happen?

Lawrence J. McAndrews. The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools 1965–2001. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 320 pp. Cloth $45.00. - Patrick J. McGuinn. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006. 320 pp. Cloth $40.00, paper $19.95.

Lawrence J. McAndrews. The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools 1965–2001. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006. 320 pp. Cloth $45.00. - Patrick J. McGuinn. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2006. 320 pp. Cloth $40.00, paper $19.95.

Oil and water still: how No Child Left Behind limits and distorts environmental education in US schools

This article explores the problematic tensions between schooling and environmental education in the United States, with a special focus on the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Today in the United States, this powerful federal legislation dominates the discourse and practice of schooling, and works against the aims of environmental education in many ways. The article is divided into three parts. First, it reviews the recent discourse of achievement and accountability in general education, as exemplified by the No Child Left Behind Act. Second, it describes the impact of achievement and accountability discourse on environmental education by outlining two responses from environmental educators to the general climate of schooling: 1) accommodation or ‘playing the achievement game’; and 2) resistance or ‘changing the rules’. Third, it explores how related tensions between nationalistic federal education policies and the sweeping global challenges suggested by the United Nation’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development present additional dilemmas for promoting and implementing environmental education. Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, the third day of January, two thousand and one An Act To close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind. (NCLB, 2001, Sec. 1)

"To remain an Indian": lessons in democracy from a century of Native American education

What might we learn from Native experiences with schools to help us forge a new vision of the democratic ideal - a critical democracy that respects, protects, and promotes diversity and human rights? In this fascinating portrait of American Indian education over the past century, the authors critically evaluate U.S. education policies and practices - from early 20th century federal incarnations of colonial education through the contemporary standards movement. In the process, they reveal the falseness of fears attached to notions of dangerous cultural difference, and convey the promise of diversity as a source of national strength. Featuring the voices and experiences of Native individuals that official history has silenced and pushed aside, this text: proposes a theoretical framework of the safety zone to explain shifts in federal educational policies and practices over the past century; offers lessons learned from Indigenous America's fight to protect and assert educational self-determination; overturns stereotypes of American Indians as one-dimensional learners; argues that the struggle to revitalize and maintain Indigenous languages is a fundamental human right; and, examines the standards movement as the most recent attempt to control the dangerous difference allegedly presented by students of color, poor and working class students, and English language learners in U.S. schools.

The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965-2001, No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005

The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (nclb) has led a growing number of scholars to reexamine the history of the federal role in American education. How, they ask, did a Republican administration come to oversee such a sweeping expansion of federal power in the nation's schools? In No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005, the political scientist Patrick J. McGuinn casts nclb as the culmination of a series of policy changes that began shortly after the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (esea, of which nclb is the latest reauthorization). Dealing mostly with the period after the election of George H. W. Bush, McGuinn traces a long, drawn-out contest between two approaches to school reform. The first, favored by Republicans, has emphasized high academic standards and state-level accountability for performance. The...

Teaching Even 100 Hours a Week Leaves Children behind

Suppose a teacher in an urban high school wanted to do more than survive. Suppose he wanted to do the job right. Sharpening his pencil and firing up his calculator, Mr. Gleibermann decided to find out just how long that would take. ********** TWO WEEKS after a year of urban high school teaching, I sat down to calculate how many hours a week it would take to leave no child behind. That's no child out of 150, since last year I taught five classes a day, averaging 30 students a class, in a San Francisco public school. I added methodically: teaching five sections of two separate courses every day, tutoring all the students who needed extra help to pass, evaluating papers and projects, and collaborating with other teachers to shape the school's academic program. The total was 140 hours per week. Discovering this mathematical absurdity softened my long-standing despair. Throughout my teaching career, I worked inhuman hours and yet wondered if I was giving enough. Only by putting the raw statistics on paper did I find an antidote to self-blame. I finally discerned that when a great many of my students fall by the academic wayside, the blame belongs not to me, but to a system that would require a teacher to work 140 hours a week to support all his students. How did I arrive at such a frightening figure as 140? The deciding variable is the time required to respond to the academic needs of each individual student. Consider writing as a test case. In a couple of hours I can craft and deliver a focused and engaging writing lesson on thesis design, embedding quotations, or parallel construction and have students edit one another's essays and take notes from a PowerPoint display. But if the goal is to ensure that each of my 150 students can apply the lesson to essay writing and take a step toward passing the writing portion of the state exit exam, no elegant lesson with any group of 30 students will ever succeed. Having high school sophomores learn to write by observing me construct a coherent paragraph on an overhead screen is the instructional equivalent of teaching them to ride a bicycle by showing videotapes. Writing is a complex mental journey. Children need a mentor to navigate the way. If they are going to succeed, I will need to coach many of them individually outside the regular school day. Conscientious teachers who are determined to open academic doorways for all students have been aware for decades that they lack the resources to meet the needs of well over 100 students. But recent state and federal education policy has brought this condition to public awareness. The goal of No Child Left Behind appears admirable: by the year 2014 every child in the nation will test to proficiency in core math and literacy skills. In addition, most states now require seniors to pass an exit exam to receive a diploma. California's high school class of 2006 was the first to fall under this requirement, following a delay four years ago when more than half of the first cohort failed. However, as we investigate what schools need to reach these ambitious goals, we publicly expose a difficult truth that teachers have long experienced one arduous day at a time. Our school system is based on a 19th-century factory model that cycles 150 students a day through a teacher's classroom, a process that was never intended to ensure that all students achieve high-level skills. But we have yet to promote alternative models that might point us toward universal success or to provide resources for public education that would appreciably reduce teacher workload. The current testing regimen and stricter teacher credentialing requirements of recent education policy do not even touch the deeper structural problem. Until we begin to provide resources that, at a minimum, allow teachers to work with far fewer students, any teacher who aims for universal success prescribes for himself eventual mental exhaustion. …

Those Wild and Wooly Seventies

See Government Grow, Gareth Davies' rich history of federal education policy, demonstrates that the 1970s and American political institutions are not nearly as conservative as we usually assume.