Chester Finn, a prominent education policy analyst, and Michael Petrilli (former Associate Assistant Deputy Secretary in the Office of Innovation and Improvement), worry in Fool Me Twice that recommendations for version 2.0 of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will increase U.S. Department of Education mandates over state and local operations of public schools. Most likely the say, the NCLB commission saw its charge as drafting a set of technocratic proposals that Congress could approve swiftly.
The future the commission depicts gives Washington yet more power over the nation’s schools; its summary recommendations use the word “require” (often followed by the word “states”) at least 35 times. By contrast, we found just half a dozen “allows” or “permits.”
They argue further that the proposed approach to NCLB ignores the big lesson of the past five years: It’s hard enough to force recalcitrant states and districts to do things they don’t want to do; it’s impossible to force them to do those things well. (Bold added.) By deploying enough regulations, enforcement actions and threats of monies withheld, Washington may coerce compliance with the law’s letter.
Yet when it comes to the hard work of improving schools (and school personnel, such as teachers, principals, etc.), what’s needed is a new single-minded federal-state compact focused on school results. This compact should leave states, schools, and educators free to innovate and take risks to produce better student learning results. That way, Finn and Petrilli argue, the law would leverage America’s federalist system rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.