Local options: Congress should return control of education to states, school boards - and parents

National Review, Dec 19, 1994 by Lamar Alexander, William J. Bennett, Daniel R. Coats

AS IT SETS out to repair the damage wrought by its predecessor, the new Republican majority in Congress needs to look hard at education. Among the least-noticed events of October's closing legislative rush was final passage of HR-6 the 6, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), a $65-billion measure that is bad for children, for education, and for American federalism. In 1,000-plus pages it sets back the cause of serious school reform, wastes billions of dollars, and erodes local control of American schools.

At a showy pre-election bill signing in Massachusetts, President Clinton and Senator Edward Kennedy said the law signals a national commitment to our children. Retiring Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D., Me.) cited education as one of the jewels in the crown of the 103rd Congress. Education Secretary Dick Riley said no one in Washington, perhaps in the whole country, was serious about education before Clinton's inauguration. And columnist Jack Anderson reported that Morgan Stanley's research department finds Clinton's "political stock ... bluechip when it comes to keeping its promises on education reform."

Like so much associated with this Administration, however, what sounds too good to be true turns out to be not entirely true and not very good at all. HR-6 was the legislative equivalent of a stealth bomber, heavily armed with dangerous weapons but scarcely visible save to its controllers and crew.

Part of a comprehensive education package, along with "Goals 2000" and measures such as a "school to work" program and expansion of Head Start, HR-6 did far more than reauthorize ESEA, the keystone of federal school aid since 1965. It reversed a decade of progress toward a coherent, bipartisan education-reform strategy as embodied in the Bush Administration's "America 2000" plan, which sought to roll back federal regulation and replace it with the initiative of teachers, communities, and parents, and which coupled voluntary goals with good tests and accountability for results.

By signing off on HR-6 and Goals 2000, President Clinton transformed a nationwide reform movement into a federal program. The new regulations concern not only the standards and assessments that schools use but also how they discipline student offenders, the topics that teachers and parents must discuss with one another, the content of sex-education courses, and the (rare) circumstances in which denying a child the right to pray may be an infraction. Clinton has even created something akin to a national school board, the National Education Standards and improvement Council.

Almost as worrying is the resurrection of inputs, resources, and services as gauges of education quality. Three decades of research show no reliable link between what goes into schools and what children learn there. Yet Goals 2000 and HR-6 affirm the routine assertion of the education establishment: If we're not happy with school results, more money and regulations will improve them.

Political correctness pervades many sections of the bill. Education Daily matter-of-factly reports that "HR-6 is laced with language on gender equity, from authorizing grants to requiring schools to collect data." The bill also establishes a post-modern definition of the "family," provides day care for the babies of unwed teenage mothers, and conflates school reform with health care, violence prevention, etc. The law provides vast windfalls for colleges of education and authorizes funds for dozens of pork-barrel projects. More troubling still is the bill's hypocrisy with respect to such promising reform strategies as charter schools and parental choice. While allowing members of Congress to claim that they voted for them, HR-6 actually immobilizes them with rules and conditions. What good, for example, is a school-choice program that lets the "sending school" veto the child's departure? Furthermore, such shackles will help the enemies of school choice argue a few years down the road that these reforms don't work.

How It Passed

THE passage of this legislation reveals much about the opportunities and perils awaiting the new Congress. HR-6 spent more than a year on Capitol Hill after the White House sent it up. Hearings dragged on. The high-profile issues were how to adjust the Chapter One formula to direct more federal dollars toward poor communities and whether to keep or jettison Chapter Two, a block grant that was immensely popular with states and localities. Tucked away in the fine print--but seldom discussed or reported--were dozens of new programs and hundreds of changes in existing ones, as well as intricate linkages between ESEA and the Goals 2000 bill. The Administration's complex proposals were heavily embroidered by Bill Ford's House Education and Labor Committee, and Ted Kennedy's Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee.

Eventually, the House cranked out the most offensive piece of education legislation in memory, the Senate a somewhat milder version. The final edition was cobbled together behind closed doors during August and September in a "staff conference" dominated by Democratic congressional aides, some of them around since the days of LBJ. Lobbyists and Administration officials played key roles in the process, but nobody else was allowed into the room.