I should probably have been working overtime commenting on current efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—currently known as No Child Left Behind—because it is the flagship federal education law. Based on national test scores, that makes it the biggest ship in a fleet of Titanics.
So why haven’t I been expending countless hours and pixels on the reauthorization, especially with the House passing its version today? Partly because there are almost no prospects of any reauthorization moving seriously on the path to enactment. The GOP-controlled House, and Democratically controlled Senate and White House, have given no indication that they will give any effort to move something to completion. And that is to be expected, not just because of infamous “gridlock,” but because President Obama unilaterally issued waivers from the law’s most onerous provisions—in particular the 2014–15 deadline for all students to be “proficient” in reading and mathematics—and in so doing released almost all pressure to change the law. Well, at least to change it the constitutional way: legislatively.
For what it’s worth, the House bill is better than the status quo, eliminating punishments for districts and schools that fail to hit “adequate yearly progress,” keeping spending slightly in check, and attempting to ensure that the U.S. secretary of education can’t all but require states to adopt national curriculum standards. That said, it is still a monstrous behemoth full of reporting requirements, giveaways to GOP-favored sectors like charter schools, and big spending. In other words, it’s nowhere near what the Constitution permits, and decades of performance measures scream for: no federal intrusion in classrooms outside of enforcing nondiscrimination and governing—if the Feds choose—District of Columbia schools.
Short of outright eliminating the federal schooling leviathan, there is one proposal worth looking at: the Local Education Authority Returns Now Act (LEARN) from Rep. Scott Garrett (R‑NJ), which would let states declare they’ll run their own education systems, then let state taxpayers keep the money Washington would have used to “help” them in education. It would sever the cord Washington has around states to make them do its bidding—tax dollars their citizens had no choice about paying—and reward their taxpayers directly.
What about the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act (APLUS), which is a Heritage Foundation-backed piece of legislation? It is better than the status quo or main House GOP bill, but it contains two major, unacceptable provisions:
- A requirement that the U.S. secretary of education approve state requests to control consolidated funding.
- A continued requirement that each state have a single set of standards, tests, and “proficiency” goals.
Essentially, it’s the same basic shell as No Child Left Behind, only with more state autonomy over spending. That’s not good enough.
That said, this is all moot. There doesn’t seem to be any serious effort to reauthorize the law, and there’s no indication that will change anytime soon. Based on what we’ve seen, that’s probably a good thing.
