NSBA Editorial/Boards’ Eye View: Standards, NCLB, and the federal role
By Michael A. Resnick
At NSBA’s recent annual conference, the Delegate Assembly approved a resolution expressing its continued opposition to federal legislation that would mandate or coerce states to adopt “specific” (i.e. national) academic standards or assessments or to penalize them if they don’t.
This vote represented a significant departure from NSBA’s previous position. In the past, NSBA opposed legislation on specific standards, but supported federally funded efforts to help states or groups of states voluntarily develop their own common standards. This shift of position is not unique; the National Conference of State Legislatures recently took a similar course of action.
In adopting the new resolution, the delegates, who are the elected leaders of NSBA’s state associations, wanted to send a strong and unequivocal message to Congress that they do not want any federal involvement in establishing academic standards. And they did not want that message to be obscured with the articulation of approaches even as indirect as NSBA’s previous position.
Proponents of congressional action on standards setting have advocated various federal roles. From the least to the most direct, they include federal support for:
• common standards voluntarily developed and adopted by groups of states;
• incentives for states to benchmark their standards to national standards;
• incentives for states to adopt national standards created by a non-federal entity; and
• incentives or mandates for states to adopt federally developed standards, although this proposal has not received serious attention.
Beyond concerns on the educational merits and philosophy of these proposals, the current climate generated by the No Child Left Behind Act would in itself generate opposition to national standards from many state and local educators and policymakers.
There is an underlying feeling that the federal government has disqualified itself from entering the standards arena given the way it has handled -- and failed to handle -- the correction of NCLB’s flaws after its enactment nearly seven years ago.
Over these years, school board members and local educators have been persistent and focused in describing their problems with NCLB.
Yet the Department of Education has been unresponsive, if not stubborn, in its refusal to address the program’s flaws. Instead the department has offered minimalist or piecemeal changes while adding new conditions and responsibilities that magnify NCLB’s untreated faults. The department’s recent release of proposed regulations underscore the point.
Meanwhile, Congress has been stymied by its inability to reach consensus on how the law should be amended while relying on a succession of “political realities” to justify its failure to produce a bill that would make corrections.
Given this experience with the NCLB school accountability system, why wouldn’t local educators oppose giving the federal government a role in setting education standards -- which, after all, define the essence of student learning?
At the same time, our nation’s future is being shaped by globalization, international competition for jobs, technological advances, and new ways of doing business in our professional and personal lives.
That future will require students to possess certain skills and knowledge that invite a forward-thinking role for the federal government. That role -- which NSBA’s Delegate Assembly voted to support -- should provide substantive and financial support to school districts so all students have an opportunity for success.
In so doing, however, the federal government must back away from becoming a compliance-driven or top-down ministry of education.
In short, Congress and, ultimately, the President who takes office next January will need to develop a new direction for the federal role.
That direction should be forward looking and should support local education in a way that is inspiring to students, educators, and communities. After all, it is in our local public schools where learning actually takes place.
Reproduced with permission from School Board News. Copyright © 2008, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789.