Help wanted: choice, accountability, and transparency will mean little without a new generation of school-based leaders to light the way - Forum

Education Next, Spring, 2003 by Lisa Graham Keegan

As a result of the legislative activity of the past 20 years, school systems have grown in size and power, under the mistaken assumption that more funding and more authority would give educators the clout and resources they needed to improve achievement. It didn't happen--and in the meantime, as the system grew, very little was done at the federal level to empower families or any others served by the system.

All that is starting to change, and change for the better. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 swept away much of the legislative clutter that had littered the education landscape for more than a decade, in favor of programs based in good science and research. High academic standards and quality reaching--two of the cornerstone recommendations of the Risk report--were finally embraced formally and built into the law. A number of state-based initiatives that favored parents and parental choice were reflected, albeit sometimes only partially, in the final legislation, including new requirements for school choice and supplemental services for children trapped in chronically failing schools.

While No Child Left Behind represents the most comprehensive and substantive change to education policy in more than 30 years, there has been some concern that the act overreaches, both in scope and in structure. Some have argued that not only are its objectives too lofty and ambitious, but in its haste to effect change immediately, the bill also arbitrarily makes some decisions that should be left to state and local decisionmakers.

For example, provisions in the law that require supplemental services, such as tutoring, and school choice for schools that have failed to improve have led some critics to bemoan these actions as a federal power grab. "This law moves against the tradition of local control in a fundamental way," said one mid-western school board member in the autumn of 2001. "We all seek nationally defined excellence, but we must be free to adapt to local conditions." What needs to be pointed out is that these same local decisionmakers have always had the authority to put such programs in place, but have simply refused to do so out of a need to protect their power base. Choosing not to act must no longer be considered "adapting to local conditions."

The requirements of No Child Left Behind--which include, for the first time, real consequences for schools that do nor show academic progress for all students--are beginning to break the stranglehold that entrenched interests have had on our schools for far too long. If local autonomy has been somewhat impeded by the new law--a debatable conclusion--then it could also be argued that this is a self-inflicted wound. Because the system could not be shamed into moving 20 years ago, the federal government has finally tried to move the system itself.

It is clear that Risk underestimated the influence of the education establishment in framing education policy and overestimated its interest in doing the right thing for children. While teacher unions and other organizations representing administrators, policymakers, and school chiefs all claim to be acting on behalf of children, they are all by their very nature really only looking out for their own best interests--that's what they're there for. Self-preservation is a strong motivator, and breaking the stronghold on the system of these interests--what Teddy Roosevelt would have called "trust busting"--will likely continue to be a major challenge for educators and policymakers.