Insurmountable Obstacles?The Evolution of Education Policy and Politics in

the United States, 1950 to 2007

William Lowe BoydPenn State University

Invited Presentation to the Politics of Education

Association at the Annual Meeting of the

American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 12, 2007

How Much Have Things Changed?

Looking back over my years in the field of education, I’m amazed at the changes that have occurred.

“That will never happen” often DID happen!

What accounts for such remarkable and unanticipated changes?

IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

The Origins of Paradigm Shifts“The ideas of economists and political

philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”

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IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

“Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back... Sooner or later, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”

-- John Maynard Keynes (1936)

IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

"The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.” -- John Maynard Keynes

How Paradigms Shift: Ideas Matter

Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)

Mark Blyth, Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century (2002)

What Have Been the Big Ideas? Legacy of Progressives’ model of public

education– Efforts toward the ‘reform of a reform’ (Tyack)

Free market and rational choice theory critiques of big government and public bureaucracies– Kenneth Arrow (1951); Anthony Downs (1957); Milton

Friedman (1962); Buchanan & Tullock (1962)– Criticism of public agencies, their lack of a ‘bottom

line’ and accountability– Fueled later rise of Neoconservative movement

What Have Been the Big Ideas?

America’s individualism and anemic welfare state– Public education carries too much of the weight

(Hochschild & Scovronick, 1995; Rothstein ‘Out of Balance,’ 2002)

Neoconservatism & successful conservative think-tank effort since 1973 to sell the free market and critique of big government (Blyth, 2002, 156-161)

What Have Been the Big Ideas? The Cold War and Sputnik crisis

– The schools were to blame for the Soviets getting ahead of us in space– NDEA of 1958

Civil rights, equality, and liberation movements– Brown v. Board of Education (1954)– “I have a dream” - M. L. King (1963)

Coleman’s “Equality of Educational Opportunity” Report (1966)– Controversial finding that schools “don’t make a difference”– Resistance to this finding leads, in time, to the “no excuses” idea that schools “make

all the difference”• Embraced by both left (Education Trust) & right (The Heritage Foundation) [Rothstein,

2002]

What Have Been the Big Ideas? The short-lived ‘Great Society’ & ‘War on Poverty’

(1964-1968)– Disillusionment & reaction: A neoconservative is “a liberal who was mugged

by reality” - Irving Kristol

‘A Nation at Risk’ (1983)– The ‘Sputnik of the 1980s’: the ‘Toyota Problem’ – Our schools are endangering us!

• The economy improved in the Clinton years, but schools received no credit.

Excellence and choice• Chester Finn - father of the “excellence” movement• Boyd & Kerchner (1988) PEA Yearbook• Chubb & Moe (1990) Politics, Markets, & America’s Schools

What Have Been the Big Ideas?

Accountability and standards– Systemic reform (Smith & O’Day, 1991, PEA Yrbk)– America 2000 - 6 National Goals - 1992– Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994– No Child Left Behind Act of 2001– Call for National Standards

What Have Been the Big Ideas? A “flat world,” free trade and globalization

– America’s schools as “the front line in the battle for our economic future,” a battle we are losing

– High skills or low wages? OR – High skills AND low wages?– The public schools, somehow, have to compensate for

globalization (e.g., prepare students for jobs that can’t be ‘outsourced’)

Global warming and the environmental crisis– Could lead to a redefinition of the economy and future toward

which policy and education should move us– This would be a really BIG change!

IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES MATTER

Reflecting on what has happened:– Insurmountable Obstacles are Not as

Insurmountable as the Appear to Be– Amazing changes have occurred in American

education policy & politics since 1950– These changes can be arrayed along

continuums seldom fully achieved, with substantial variation depending upon locale

Changes in the study of educational politics

A shift from a focus in the 1960s on the separation of education from politics (its uniqueness as an ‘autonomous’ sphere of governance) and on its domination by professionals within public education to developments that have nullified both propositions– Politicians (mayors & governors) and external actors

reasserting control over education– Education too important to be controlled just by educators– Professionals challenged; held accountable via testing,

national standards, NCLB requirements

Changes in field of education From a focus on inputs to outcomes

– From a “logic of confidence” to a “logic of consequences”

From weak teachers organizations to potent unions From students & teachers with few rights & little

power to activist students & teachers From top-down management to shared leadership From lockstep seniority ladders and “all teachers

are equal” to differentiated staffing and compensation of teachers

Changes in field of education From local control of K-12 education policy to increasing

state and federal control of education From no federal control to NCLB! From local control of the curriculum to national standards From disconnected goals, curricula, and tests to systemic

alignment From report cards on kids to report cards on schools,

districts, and states From “schools don’t make a difference” to (equally invalid

idea that) “schools make all the difference” (Rothstein, 2002)

Changes in field of education

From acceptance of the achievement gap to disaggregated AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) with teeth

From opinion-based to evidence-based, data-driven decision-making & evaluation studies, & scientific “controlled trials”

From professional control and restricted access to information to increasingly open systems and growing influence and control for external actors and citizens

Changes in field of education

From education as a ‘back-burner’ issue to one of great political importance

From the separation of education from politics to increasing political control – the “reform of a reform” (Tyack)– Mayors taking over; use of non-educators as CEOs;– Institutional change in urban school governance

From temporary ‘windows of opportunity’ for education reform to perpetual reform– “A Nation at Risk” - a brief window of opportunity?

• The ‘Issue-Attention Cycle” - Anthony Downs

Changes in field of education

From public education as a near monopoly to diversified school choice

From on-site schooling to cyber schooling – the “disintermediation” of public education

From public education as a sacred cow to a sweeping re-examination of the concept of public education and of the means for its delivery– “Why We Still Need Public Schools: Public Education for the

Common Good” Center on Education Policy (CEP)

The First Big Surprise: ESEA & Growth of Federal Control

Between 1862 and 1963, Congress considered unrestricted general aid to schools thirty-six times and rejected it thirty-six times (Kirst, 2004).

Munger & Fenno (1962), in National Politics and Federal Aid to Education, could not see how a Federal Aid bill could be passed. – The racial, religious & federal control issues seemed

insurmountable.

Yet, in 1965 ESEA was enacted.

How ESEA happened Assassination of JFK 1964 election gave LBJ a huge Democratic

majority in Congress Passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964 muted the

racial issue White House worked deals to gain Catholic and

NEA acceptance of a federal aid bill. Major focus of ESEA on poor children (Title I)

reflects influence of Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962)

Evolution of ESEA Title VI of ESEA of 1965 said nothing in the Act

authorized the federal government to “exercise any direction, supervision or control” over education.

Yet, in 2001, ESEA was reauthorized as NCLB, violating every pledge in Title VI

LBJ would have been amazed by NCLB (Manna, 2007, pp. 4 & 117).

Yet, Sundquist (1968, p. 216) recognized ESEA’s potential for an expanding federal role.

A Second Surprise: The Paradigm ShiftFrom Inputs to Outcomes & Accountability

A far-reaching paradigm shift, only recently fully appreciated. – From a “logic of confidence” to a “logic of

consequences”– Boyd & Immegart, 1979; Boyd & Crowson, 1981

This shift has changed the requirements of policy, practice, & research– See James Guthrie (2006) “Multi-Purpose Education

Doctorates No Longer Palatable.” – NCLB’s focus on outcomes and requirements for

scientific research and evidence.

A Second Surprise: The Paradigm ShiftFrom Inputs to Outcomes & Accountability

Most changes, especially in governance, have had little effect on the technical core of schools: teaching & learning.

The outcomes emphasis could improve teaching & learning, if more beneficial testing and accountability schemes can be devised.– Eva Baker’s 2007 AERA presidential address:

“The End(s) of Testing

A Third Surprise: The Choice & Excellence Movement is here to stay

From a glimmer in Milton Friedman’s mind in the 1950s to today.

Still unpopular with many public educators, but less so than when Kerchner & I published our 1988 Yearbook.– Then not politically correct to discuss school choice as

an option -- This was abetting the enemy.– Assumption seemed to be ‘it will go away’ if ignored– Choice still considered traitorous in some circles,

despite collapse of belief in “The Once Best System”

Choice & Excellence

Work by many think tanks and policy entrepreneurs to advance the choice idea (Mintrom, 2000)– Friedman Foundation & Free to Choose book

& video (1977)– Joe Nathan & Ted Kolderie in Minnesota– Chubb & Moe’s Politics, Markets, and

America’s Schools, published by Brookings (1990), helped legitimate the idea

Choice & Excellence

Charter schools far more popular than voucher plans– Privately funded vouchers to demonstrate the

idea– Constitutional barriers not insurmountable– Charters becoming part of urban systems

• Philadelphia & Los Angeles• KIPP to ‘go to scale’ in Houston• From 8 KIPP schools with 1,700 students to 42

schools with 21,000 students in 10 years

A Fourth Surprise: Welcome to National Standards

From the sacred cow of local control to national standards– Belief in political impossibility of national

standards From de facto national standards to real

national standards– Nationalizing influences &‘The folklore of local

control’ - Roald Campbell (1959)– National Standards getting steadily increasing

attention in Education Week

A Fifth Surprise in the Making?: Differentiated staffing & compensation

From ‘all teachers are equal’ to some are ‘more equal than others’– National Board Certified teachers

Teacher performance pay– Allen Odden’s efforts

• http://cpre.wceruw.org/tcomp/

– Overview by Heneman et al. (2007) ‘New center asks: Does merit pay work?’ Education Week

(2007, March 19) Will teachers unions ever accept this stuff?

– Denver case

Conclusion: Education policy developments can be unpredictable

Don’t be too quick to assume “That’ll never happen.”

The moral of this story can be drawn from James Thurber’s fable, “The Unicorn in the Garden.”

His payoff line is: “Don't count your boobies until they’re hatched.”

(http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/unicorn1.html)

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