False premises: The accountability fetish in education

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 1015-1034

  Derthick, Martha ^a   Dunn, Joshua M ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70049101807     PISSN: 01934872     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (114)

1. Rachel L. Swarns, An ln-Law, a Mainstay, a White House Resident, N.Y. times, Jan. 10, 2009, at Al.
2. Economic Report of the president 191 (2002) [hereinafter Economic Report].
3. George W. Bush, No Child Left Behind 2 (2001) [hereinafter Bush Paper].
4. See Patrick J. McGuinn, No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005, at 153-154 (2006).
5. See id.
6. Nat'l Comm'n on Excellence in Educ, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (1983).
7. See Kevin R. Kosar, Failing Grades: The Federal Politics of Education Standards (2005).
8. Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, Pub. L. No.103-382, 108 Stat. 3518 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. §§ 6301-8962 (2006)).
9. Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Pub. L. No.89-10, 79 Stat. 27.
10. See MCGUINN, supra note 4, at 137-142.
11. See kosar, supra note 7, at 185.
12. Bush Paper, supra note 3, at 1.
13. See id. at 2-3.
14. Academic Achievement for All Act (Straight A's Act), H.R. 2300, 106th Cong. (1999).
15. See Andrew Rudalevige, No Child Left Behind: Forging a Congressional Compromise, in NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?: THE POLITICS AND PRACTICE OF SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY 23, 32 (Paul E. Peterson & Martin R. West eds., 2003).
16. BUSH Paper, supra note 3, at 4.
17. Id. at 5.
18. Economic Report, supra note 2, at 191.
19. No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110, 115 Stat. 1425.
20. For analyses of the passage of No Child Left Behind, See MCGUINN, supra note 4, at 165-95, and Rudalevige, supra note 15, at 23-54.
21. Teachers circulated a number of e-mails mocking and satirizing the law. See, e.g., John Taylor, No Dentist Left Behind (2002), http://www.trelease-on- reading.com/ no-dentist.html.
22. U.S. Dep't of Educ, Awards-State Flexibility Demonstration Program, http://www.ed.gov/print/programs/stateflex/awards.hbnl (last visited Apr. 7, 2009).
23. See Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Educ, Seattle's Public School Students Benefit from No Child Left Behind Acf s flexibility (Nov. 6, 2003), available at http://www.ed.gov/ news/pressreleases/2003/ll/11062003.html.
24. see frederick m. hess & michael j. petrilu, no child left behind: Primer 31-34 (2006).
25. See id. at 35.
26. Id. at 42-43.
27. For analyses of the compromises that President Bush made in enacting NCLB, see Frederick M. Hess, Why LBJ Is Smiling: NCLB and the Bush Legacy in Education, Am. Enter. Inst, for Pub. Policy research, education Outlook, Dec. 2008, available at http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.29057/pub-detail.asp
28. and Frederick M. Hess & Michael J. Petrilli, Bush the Hall Monitor: On education-reform legislation, compromise trumped conservatism, Nat'L Rev. Online, Dec. 23, 2008, http://arHcle.nationalreview.com/?q= YWJhNTRIGUOZDlkYjZkMTVjNj TNlMzg0YzU=
29. See Chester E. Finn, Jr., Dumbing Education Down, wall st. J., Oct. 5, 2007, at A16.
30. See id.;
31. see also JOHN CRONIN et al., The PROFICIENCY ILLUSION 6-7 (2007).
32. See HESS & PETRILLI, supra note 23, at 33-34.
33. MCGUINN, supra note 4, at 189.
34. See id.
35. See Marie C. Scott, Resegregation, Language, and Educational Opportunity: The Influx of Latino Students into North Carolina Public Schools, 11 HARV. LATINO L. REV. 123, 146-147 (2008).
36. Bush Paper, supra note 3, at 5.
37. Id. at 6.
38. Id. at 13.
39. Nicholas Lemann, Testing Limits: Can the President's education crusade survive Beltway politics?, NEW YORKER, July 2, 2001, at 28, 30-31.
40. Id. at 30.
41. See HESS & Petrilli, supra note 23, at 20, 63-65.
42. Id. at 65.
43. See McGuiNN, supra note 4, at 159, 172;
44. Rudalevige, supra note 15, at 40.
45. BUSH paper, supra note 3, at 18.
46. See Martha Derthick, Address at the American Enterprise Institute/Thomas B. Fordham Institute Conference, From Brown to "Bong Hits": Assessing a Half- Century of Judicial Involvement in Education: Litigation Under No Child Left Behind 13 (Oct. 15, 2008), available at http://www.aei.org/eventl746.
47. David J. Hoff, New Reports Track 'No Child Left Behind' Progress, EDUC. week, Jan. 21, 2009, at 5.
48. See generally LEAVING No CHILD BEHIND? OPTIONS for KIDS IN FAILING SCHOOLS (Frederick M. Hess & Chester E. Finn, Jr., eds., 2004).
49. See Derthick, supra note 42, at 13-14, 22.
50. Bush Paper, supra note 3, at 1.
51. See hess & petrilli, supra note 23, at 136-140.
52. McGUINN, supra note 4, at 188-189, 192.
53. See Tom Loveless, High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB 19 (2008), available at hnp://www.edexcellence.net/doc/20080618-high-achievers.pdf.
54. Sam Dillon, New Vision for Schools Proposes Broad Role, N.Y. TIMES, July 14, 2008, at All.
55. Diane Ravitch et al., So You Want to Be Education Secretary wash. post, Jan. 12, 2009, at B2.
56. Diane Ravitch, A Nation Still at Risk, hoover dig., Fall 2008, available at http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/30694734.html
57. Pub. L. No.89-329, 79 Stat. 1219 (1965).
58. See Sam Dillon, Education Law Finds Few Fans in Utah, N.Y. Times, Mar. 6, 2005, at 33;
59. Avi Salzman, A Fight Over Ideas In Education Suit, N.Y. times, Aug. 28, 2005, at 5.
60. See Paul Basken et al., Bush's Legacy in Higher Education: a Matter of Debate, Chron. Higher Educ. (Wash, d.C.), Dec. 19, 2008, at A14.
61. See Robert Zemsky, Lower College Costs and Improved Student Learning: Real Answers Missing from the Spellings Commission Report, about campus, Juiy-Aug. 2007, at 7.
62. See Dale Buss, Sometimes, It's Not the Tuition. It's the Textbooks, N.Y. times, Sept. 4, 2005, at 8;
63. Greg Winter, Closed Loophole Hasn't Cut Subsidies for Student Loans: Payments to Lenders Are as High as Ever, N.Y. times, Apr. 10, 2005, at 18.
64. See sec'y of educ.'s comm'n on the future of higher educ., a test of Leadership: Charting the Future of u.s. Higher Education, at xi (2006) [hereinafter a test of leadership].
65. See Wanda Rushing, Inequality and Education Reform: formulating a macro- historical sociology perspective, 4 RACE ETHNICITY & EDUC. 33, 35-36 (2001).
66. Zemsky, supra note 55, at 2.
67. See id. at 3.
68. See A TEST OF LEADERSHIP, supra note 57, at x.
69. Id.
70. Paul Basken, A Year Later, Spellings Report Still Makes Ripples, CHRON. HIGHER EDUC. (Wash. D.C.), Sept. 28, 2007, at Al.
71. Id. at A20.
72. Id.
73. See id. at A21.
74. Id. at A20.
75. See Doug Lederman, Fault Lines on Accreditation, inside higher ED, Feb. 22, 2007, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/22/accredit.
76. Id.
77. See vickie schray, assuring quality in higher education: recommendations for Improving Accreditation 4-8 (2006), available at http://www.ed.gov/ about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/reports/schray.pdf.
78. See A test of leadership, supra note 57. As the Bush Administration ended, Schray became the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs, a position that the Administration had converted from political to career status to accommodate her. Posting of Paul Basken to Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog, At Education Department, as at Other Agencies, It's Time for Some to 'Burrow In, ' http://chronicle.com/news/article/5528/at-education- department-as-at-otheragencies-its-time-to-burrow-in (Nov. 20, 2008).
79. schray, supra note 70, at 1-2.
80. Id. at 5.
81. Id.
82. Id. at 3.
83. See Kelly Field, A Bill That Took Longer Than a Bachelor's Degree, DHRON. HIGHER EDUC. (Wash. D.C.), Aug. 8, 2008, at All;
84. Doug Lederman, Congressional Timeout for Spellings, INSIDE HIGHER ED, June 8, 2007, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/08/accredit.
85. Higher Education Opportunity Act, Pub. L. No.110-315, § 106, 122 Stat. 3078, 3093 (2008).
86. Bush did in fact go back to Texas, whereas Spellings stayed in Washington promising to remain "a warrior in [the accountability] battle." Alyson Klein, Spellings' Worldview: There's No Going Back on K-12 Accountability, EDUC. WEEK, Dec. 10, 2008, at 17.
87. § 106, 122 Stat, at 3091.
88. See Basken et al., supra note 54, at A14;
89. Doug Lederman, Key COP Senator Warns Spellings, INSIDE HIGHER ED, May 29, 2007, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/29/alexander.
90. Lederman, supra note 80.
91. § 2, 122 Stat, at 3082-3083.
92. Terry W. Hartle, Coming Soon: Lots More Federal Regulations, TRUSTEESHIP, Nov.-Dec. 2008, at 8, 10.
93. Id.
94. Id.
95. § 488, 122 Stat, at 3299, 3301;
96. § 487, 122 Stat, at 3290;
97. §§ 766-769, 122 Stat, at 3365;
98. § 119, 122 Stat, at 3117;
99. § 802, 122 Stat, at 3446;
100. § 453, 122 Stat, at 3265.
101. Id. at 3309.
102. A Test of Leadership, supra note 56, at 2.
103. Richard M. Freeland & Terry Hartle, Stemming the Rising Tide of Regulation, Presidency, Fall 2001, at 24, 25.
104. Id. at 26;
105. See also Terry Hartle & Melanie Corrigan, A Road Map to Federal Compliance, presidency, Spring 2006, at 10-13.
106. Nat'l Ctr. for Educ. Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2007, at 117 tbl.83, 385 tbl.255 (2008), available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/ pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2008022.
107. Adam Clymer, Bush Seeks to Secure California's Big Prize, N.Y. times, Mar. 6, 2000, at A16 (quoting President Bush).
108. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: what Government Agencies Do and Why they Do It 159, 168 (1989). The Authors are indebted to R. Shep Melnick for reminding them of the pertinence of Wilson's typology to an understanding of the issue of accountability.
109. R. Shep Melnick Address at the American Enterprise Institute/Thomas B. Fordham Institute Conference From Brown to "Bong Hits": Assessing a Half-Century of Judicial Involvement in Education: Taking Remedies Seriously: Judicial Methods for Controlling Bureaucratic Discretion in Public Schools 9 (Oct 15, 2008), available at http://www.aei.org/docUb/20081010-Melnick3.15.08. pdf
110. Editorial, Running from 'No Child, ' wash. post, Nov. 27, 2007, at A16.
111. William J. Bennett, Op-Ed., Our Greedy Colleges, N.Y. TTMES, Feb. 18, 1987, at A31.
112. Id.
113. A Test of Leadership, supra note 57, at 2.
114. See Doug Lederman, Whither Accreditation?, INSIDE HIGHER ED, Jan. 28, 2009, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/28/accredit.