Education reforms must involve locals

Published 7:03 pm Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The deck chairs on the Titanic need re-arranging. That seems to be Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s view, as he proposes scrapping the No Child Left Behind legislation for something that includes more funding, more testing and more centralized power for Washington.

Absent was any mention of the only real, proven kind of reform — engaging parents to become more involved in their children’s education.

“Education Secretary Arne Duncan spelled out his priorities for a new federal education law Monday, calling on Congress to build in funding for preschool, add $1 billion annually in federal aid for schools with the neediest students, and maintain the federal mandate that says states must test students every year in math and reading,” the Washington Post reports. “He talked broadly about equal educational opportunity as a civil right — and as a moral and economic imperative for the country — but he included a few specific ideas he wants incorporated in federal law. He said any new law must include a provision that states test every student annually in math and reading in grades 3 to 8 and once in high school.”

Duncan contends that the testing provision is about accountability to parents.

“I believe parents, teachers and students have both the right and the need to know how much progress all students are making each year toward college and career readiness,” Duncan said. “That means all students need to take annual statewide assessments that are aligned with their teacher’s classroom instruction.”

Here’s where he’s wrong.

First, his take on No Child Left Behind is that it’s failing because it’s not robust enough.

That’s exactly wrong.

No Child Left Behind is failing because it’s a Washington-centered, one-size-fits-all program of policies that decreases local control.

He sees local control as the problem, not the solution. He says ceding control of education to the states would “turn back the clock on educational progress, 15 years or more.”

Fortunately, Duncan now has a strong opponent in the chairman’s seat on the Senate Education Committee. Sen. Lamar Alexander took over that committee last week, and says he’s tired of NCLB and the Department of Education acting as “the nation’s school board.”

Next, the call for more funding is beside the point. We needn’t point out that some of the school districts that spend the most per child — such as Washington, D.C. — have the least to show for it. We merely need to mention that even as school expenditures have skyrocketed, educational success has declined. There’s simply no correlation between more money and better results.

What there is, however, is solid evidence that parental involvement is the key to improving educational outcomes for our children. And that’s achieved at the local level — not in Washington.

As President Obama himself has said, “The bottom line is that no government policies will make any difference unless we also hold ourselves more accountable as parents.”

Sec. Duncan’s call for revamping NCLB, increasing testing and adding funding won’t achieve the real goal here — providing a better educational experience for all of our children.