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The
No Child Left Behind Act and the
Assault Harold
Berlak As
a progressive
educator I hold two sets of values and beliefs. The first set is
pedagogical
and curricular --ways of viewing human development, childhood,
adolescence, the
nature of learning, knowledge, and knowing. Progressive practices aim
to engage
the learner, nurture imagination, cognitive and artistic expression,
and foster
social-emotional and moral development. The words most often associated
with
such practices are whole child and student centered. While these terms oversimplify, they
encapsulate core values of the progressive pedagogical tradition. The
second
set is political and addresses the question of control --how power is
distributed throughout the society including schools, and the role of
government at all levels. At the core of political progressivism is a
commitment to, or more aptly, an aspiration for democracy --that there
should
not be a hierarchy of privilege based on wealth, status, race, gender,
and that
everyone should be able to exercise their basic human rights including
the
right to participate fully in making decisions that affect our lives
and the
life of our communities. This includes control over the institutions
that
educate the young. I believe democracy requires economic and social
equality,
the redistribution down of money, power, cultural capital,
pleasure and
freedom. In the next several pages I address how these two pillars of
progressive education, the pedagogical and political, have fared over
the years
from the mid sixties and early seventies through today, the era of 'compassionate conservatism' and the No
Child Left Behind Act. The
Rise and Fall of the 'Great Society' In
accepting
the nomination for president in 1960 John F. Kennedy spoke of a ‘New
Frontier’,
a "frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams," and as President he
would address the "…unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered
pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty."
However, at the time of his assassination in 1963, most New Frontier
proposals
were marooned in a Congress dominated by an alliance of pro-corporate
Republicans and racist,
Southern Democrats adamantly opposed to
the
implementation of the 1954 Brown v Board of Education desegregation
decision.
When Lyndon Johnson assumed office he embraced the idealism of the 'New
Frontier' and in a commencement address at University of Michigan in
May 1964,
spoke eloquently about what he called the "Great Society". It is a
remarkably humane and inclusive vision of American democracy, and of a
government dedicated to protecting civil rights and liberties and
serving
social justice The
Great
Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to
poverty
and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time.
But that
is just the beginning. The
Great
Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his
mind and
to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance
to
build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It
is a
place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and
the
demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for
community. In
the next
two years, Johnson, former Texas Senator, Democratic majority leader,
and
consummate dealmaker, navigated through a recalcitrant Congress an
impressive
array of progressive laws and programs unrivaled since the early New
Deal. These include the 1965 Civil
Rights Act
outlawing racial discrimination in public accommodations and voter
registration; the Economic Opportunity Act that established the
OEO, the
Office of Economic Opportunity along with Job Corps, remedial and
vocational
education programs, work-study grants for students, VISTA, a domestic
peace
corps; a revision of the Immigration and Nationality Act which
repealed the
notorious system of racist national quotas imposed in the 1920s; the Voting
Rights Act that put teeth into the enforcement of the 24th
amendment to the
Constitution ratified a year earlier;
Medicare and Medicaid; The Federal Housing Act; the Clean Air and Water
Act. The list goes on. In 1965 Johnson's two landmark educational
initiatives were unveiled: Head Start and the Elementary and
Secondary Act (ESEA). Head Start was
conceived in 1964 as a
pre kindergarten, daycare program by a panel convened by OEO composed
of
fourteen nationally prominent experts on children's health, social and
cognitive development, and childhood education. The goal of Head Start
was to
"break the cycle of poverty" by providing poor children and their
families a comprehensive program addressing a wide range of needs
--physical
and emotional health, socialization, nutrition, and education. It began as an eight-week summer program in
1965 with a few thousand children and by 2004 has grown to a seven
billion
dollar annual program serving just over nine hundred thousand poor
children in
eighteen thousand centers located in every state, DC, Puerto Rico, and
US
territories. From
the
perspective of policy and politics what was striking about Head Start
is how it
was organized and controlled at the national and local levels. The
locus of
control for program design, governance, and personnel rested with the
local
staff and policy councils or advisories composed of parents, staff, and
members
of the immediate community. There was federal oversight, but little
interference in personnel policy and day-to-day operations. In an
effort to
insure that Head Start retained its comprehensive, holistic, balanced
emphasis and
not stress the academic over health and other developmental areas, the
federal
Head Start bureau was deliberately located outside the Office of
Education
(predecessor of the US Department of Education), and local programs
were
independent of state and local school authority. ESEA was devised to provide aid directly to
local
districts and schools that served children of the ‘disadvantaged'. Its
purview
expanded over the years and it now authorizes funds for Indian
education,
teacher training, early literacy, school libraries, bilingual
education,
technology, and school safety. In 2004 Title I, its largest set of
programs,
authorized $11.7 billion of aid to 47,000, nearly half of the nation’s
public
schools. While federal dollars account
for only seven percent of the nation’s expenditures for schools, these
dollars
are critical to districts and schools that serve disproportionately
large
populations of the poor, African-Americans, Latinos, and immigrants for
whom
English is a second language. At the time ESEA passed it was widely
presumed that a
basic value of US democracy was that schooling of the young was a local
community responsibility. While the states set guidelines, and provided
funds
and oversight, specific pedagogical and curricular decisions were
mostly left
to teachers, principals, districts, and locally elected governing
boards. There
were exceptions notably the textbook adoption states --California,
Texas and
several states in the Deep South. But even these states lacked the
legal
mandate and/ or the bureaucratic apparatus to force compliance to
specific
curricular and pedagogical mandates. In order to guard against
intrusions by
federal officials Congress added explicit language to ESEA prohibiting
any
"federal agency or official from exercising direction, supervision, or
control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or
personnel in any educational institution or school system." Most ESEA
funds went directly to the local authorities thereby bypassing the
authority of
the states' education officials and departments of education. In
1967, the
final piece of the Great Society educational agenda was set in place.
Called
'Follow Through', it was intended to capitalize on progress made by
Head Start
by providing educational services to children from kindergarten through
third
grade. However, by 1967, talk of the Great Society and War on Poverty
had all
but disappeared from mainstream politics. 1965 was the zenith of Great
Society
legislative accomplishment, but it was also a year of other fateful
events that
led to the unraveling of the Johnson presidency. Thousands of
"advisors" and massive U.S. bombings had failed to secure US victory
in Vietnam and Johnson dispatched the first contingent of combat
troops, 3,500
Marines, to Vietnam in early March. By year's end there were I84, 000
troops
and the numbers were rising. As the numbers swelled so too did anti-war
protests on college campuses across the country. The resistance was
widespread
and led by a new generation of radical (largely white male) college
students,
known as the 'New Left'. 1965
was
also a year of domestic violence and racial ferment.
There were civil rights demonstrations and
marches throughout the South led by Martin Luther King Jr. and the
Southern
Christian Leadership Council. Coincidentally, the first contingent of
Marines,
arrived in Vietnam on the Monday following 'Bloody Sunday', a day when
peaceful
marchers in Selma were gassed and brutally beaten by Alabama state
troopers in
plain sight of cameras and the national press. 1965 was also a year
when
several thousand young men and women descended upon the South to test
the
Johnson Administration's resolve to make good on its vow to defend
civil
rights. 1965 was the same year that Malcolm X was assassinated while
preaching
a message of Black unity and resistance (as opposed to non-violence),
and that
Watts, a neighborhood of the desperately poor in LA, mostly African
American
and Latino, erupted into six days of uncontrolled violence that killed
34,
wounded 1000, burned and leveled hundreds of buildings, and led to the
arrest
and jailing of over 4000. From 1965 through 1967, the first year of
Project
Follow Through, there was violence in 100 cities across the U.S. 1967 was also the year that that Martin
Luther King delivered his historic sermon "A Time To Break Silence"
at Riverside Church in New York City that forged a link between the
anti-war
and civil rights movements. In
the
competition for guns or butter, the guns won again. As the costs of the
war
soared, Great Society programs were funded at a fraction of projected
costs.
Project Follow Through was originally intended to aid all public
elementary schools serving the poor at a cost estimated at just over a
billion
dollars annually, It was funded in the tens of millions less than 10%
of the
original estimate. In March 1968, the "Tet" offensive, the
simultaneous attack on US held cities and military installations across
South
Vietnam, punctured the myth that a US victory was at hand.
Johnson's popularity plummeted to a new low,
nearing 30%. With the national election
on the horizon, a disheartened, unpopular Johnson shocked the nation by
his
announcement he would not seek another term. Later that same year, the
two icons
of the growing antiwar and civil rights movements, Martin Luther King
Jr. and
Robert F Kennedy were murdered, and in November Richard Nixon was
elected
president on a platform of restoring fiscal responsibility and pursuing
'peace
with honor'. It
is
important to note how Project Follow managed to survive until 1994. It
was
rationalized as an "experiment" to test and establish once and for
all, which of the approaches taken by the two dozen or so project
sponsors was
most effective. This use of standardized tests sparked strong community
opposition.
It is ironic that this tactical move aimed at saving Follow Through by
converting it to an experiment not only contributed to the programs
demise, it
set a precedent for the use by the federal government of standardized
testing
as the primary measure of educational success. The
right
wing counter-revolution The
decade
of the sixties and escalation of the Vietnam War were accompanied by
massive
political, social and cultural transformations. Social conventions and
authority –family, corporate, government, and university-- were
everywhere
under siege or so it appeared to those with power. This tumultuous
decade gave
birth to a new assertive Black identity movement that demanded not only
civil
and voting rights but political and economic power; a progressive anti
war
movement able to drive a president from office; a reinvigorated women's
movement, and consumer and environmental protection movements
foreshadowing others
--La
Raza, Native American, Asian-American, gay rights among others. The
fears that
the 1960s movements provoked in the halls of government, big business
and
culturally right wing sectors of American Society are difficult to
exaggerate.
As the I970s began the major US corporations were experiencing what the
business pages call a 'profit squeeze'. The World War II enemies of the
US,
Germany and Japan, were seriously challenging the economic dominance of
the US.
All moves toward liberal, social democracy that would restrict
corporate power
were portrayed by its leaders as serious threats to corporate
profitability,
economic recovery and growth. To Christian
fundamentalists the cultural
transformations of sixties were nothing less than a frontal assault by
the
godless on their cherished values and beliefs about family, sexuality,
and
country. Nixon's
election confirmed the beginnings of a successful counter-revolution
orchestrated by an (uneasy) alliance between US financial corporate
interests
and the far right to undo social, political and legal gains of the
Great
Society and the New Deal, and advance the right wing cultural agenda.
Now,
thirty years later, this coalition of shared interests is in full
command of
the leadership of the Republican Party, the Congress and the Supreme
Court.
They installed a president who calls himself a compassionate
conservative, and
decries big government while unabashedly using the power of government
to
promote corporate interests, increase the wealth of the wealthiest,
undermine
civil and women's rights, and suppress dissent. A major sector for the
consolidation of state power and extending corporate influence is
education,
pre-school through the university. While
ESEA
and Head Start survived, there were changes over the years that eroded
by
increments the historic commitment to democratic community control of
schools.
. Bush the elder called the first "educational summit" in 1989. It
was dominated by Fortune 500 corporate executives, governors, and
federal
officials who concluded national standardized testing is essential for
federal
and state officials to exercise control of curriculum, teaching and
learning,
and teacher qualifications. Their
proposal for national testing failed to make it though the Congress.
Bush's
successor, Bill Clinton, the 'New Democrat' and champion of national
testing,
managed to get his "Goals 2000" Act through Congress. Among other
things this legislation authorized grants to states to develop
assessments that
linked so-called content standards to standardized testing.
But
Clinton's proposal for national testing died in Congress because of the
opposition of the Black Caucus and Christian fundamentalists led by
then
Senator John Ashcroft. Where Clinton
and Bush I failed, Bush II was
successful. He attached his proposal for
national testing to the 2001 revision of ESEA, and re-christened it the
No
Child Left Behind Act. (NCLB) The law cedes unprecedented powers to
federal
officials. As a condition of receiving federal dollars states must now
adopt
content standards linked to standardized testing; and schools must
measure and
make "Annual Yearly Progress" --as determined by federal regulations. All curriculum materials and services for
teaching reading (and soon math) must be approved in advance as
"scientifically based"; and all school staff must be
"highly qualified" as defined by
federal regulations that nullify local prerogatives and state law. To attract the votes of conservative Republicans
in
Congress who are ideologically opposed to federal intervention and
national
testing, Bush tacked on two provisions. One requires all pubic schools
receiving federal dollars to provide student lists to military
recruiters. The
second mandates that no school or district can deny the Boy Scouts, or
any
other group listed as a "patriotic society" under the U.S. Code,
access to school facilities for after school meetings even if this
violates
state and local anti-discrimination statutes. The
Future of a Progressive Education Movement Tactical moves by the corporate right
coalition were instrumental in undermining much of the Great Society
and in
turning on its head the nation's historic commitment to local control.
They
framed the issues of school reform in terms of raising standards and
measuring
results and promoted the fiction that gains in standardized test scores
and the
improvement of academic standards are one and the same. Billions of
corporate
dollars over the last 15 years have created a new generation of think
tanks,
foundations and non-profits whose sole function is to provide experts
and
produce reports and studies to buttress right wing, pro- corporate
policies and
counter evidence that these policies restrict educational opportunities
and
widen the class and race gap. Another tack of this coalition was to
increase
government control of the curriculum by a provision of the No Child
Left Behind
Act that requires all teaching materials and services be
"scientifically
based". The effect of this regulation is to censor
curriculum
materials and approaches that don't fit the government's
pro corporate,
right wing education agenda. Among the
greatest achievements of the right is its success in creating a mythic
story of
the sixties through the nineties --the Great Society programs were
failures;
the social movements of the times are "special interests", enemies of
progress, and the common good; a liberal intellectual elite is to blame
for
moral decay and fostering cultural and class warfare; and the true
keepers of
the democratic tradition are Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and right
wing
Republicans. . In
my view,
if a new unified progressive education movement is to emerge as a
political
force in US politics, it must capture the initiative reasserting for
the 21st
century the fundamental political and pedagogical values of progressive
education.
We must acknowledge the need for public accountability and at
the same time directly challenge all forms of national and
statewide
standardized testing used singly or in conjunction with other measures
to rank
schools, define achievement or merit, or distribute rewards and
sanctions to
schools and teachers. Substituting the current crop of standardized
tests with
a new breed of "authentic" standardized tests is not an advance since
they do not challenge the centralization of government power.
Standardized
testing is the key issue because standardized testing is the essential
tool for
centralizing control. Without standardized tests, top-down,
bureaucratic
government control of teaching and learning cannot function. It
is vital
that progressive educators reclaim and critically examine the history
of
progressivism and progressive education in the US, not only to dispel
the
rampant right wing mythology, but also to become informed of
progressive
education's many accomplishments, its failures, and its numerous
manifestations
over time. Many progressive educators have attempted to depoliticize
progressive
education, viewing it narrowly as a children's rights and pedagogical
movement
to the exclusion of a wider vision of social, economic, and political
justice.
If a new reinvigorated progressive education movement is to take shape,
it must
view itself as a political movement, as an integral part of a broader
struggle
for human rights, social, racial and economic justice. And, as with
progressives generally, progressive educators must confront the
cultural
parochialism, class bias and racism
within our own practices and organizations. These are rooted in history
and
remain as formidable barriers to collective action and achieving
democracy and
equality.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harold Berlak has written
extensively on
curriculum, educational assessment and educational policy. He holds a
doctorate
in educational research from Harvard University and is a former
professor of
education at Washington University in St. Louis. Currently
he is an independent researcher and
consultant, a fellow at the Educational Policy Research Unit at Arizona
State
University and senior research fellow at the Applied Research Center,
Oakland California. hberlak@sbcglocal.net
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