Having a strong federal Education Department does not have to mean ceding local control, writes Kalman Hettleman, who says calls to do away with the department under the Trump administration are a mistake. Getty Images.
With apologies to Hamlet: Is the U.S. Department of Education to be or not to be? That is the question, deeply controversial, about public education in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.
Trump/MAGA want to trash the USDOE altogether. Yet, reason and experience show its elimination would be irrational and a severe blow to the future of our schoolchildren.
Our country desperately needs an invigorated, muscular USDOE that can provide leadership in rescuing our schools from the mediocrity which is particularly ruinous for our most vulnerable students, particularly those who are Black and brown.
The mediocrity was recognized as far back as the 1970s. In 1983, it was exposed in the most famous study of U.S. public schools in our country’s history: A Nation at Risk. Its call to action was embraced by liberals and conservatives (including President Ronald Reagan) alike.
The study emphasized that the terrible plight of public education was national in scope and impact. A well-educated populace is indispensable to our entire nation’s economic and social well-being.
Nonetheless, for decades, there has been vehement opposition to a meaningful federal role. The opposition was expressed in the Every Student Succeeds Act that in 2016 rolled back already weak national standards and accountability measures.
In the meantime, states and localities have violated the civil right of students to adequate educational opportunity, while trying to hide their wrongdoing.
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Almost all states have lowered academic standards and inflated student achievement to conceal the true breadth and depth of illiteracy and ill-numeracy nationwide. In order to look better than other states, they engage in what is known as a “race to the bottom.” Telltale evidence is that scores under the only national tests of student performance – the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – are significantly lower than under state tests. Maryland’s proficiency scores under NAEP are lower by about 15-20 percentage points than scores under Maryland’s own tests.
Some states make greater effort than others, and the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future arguably tops the list. But even Maryland falls short. Witness the Blueprint’s serious growing pains. So, a no-nonsense national education policy led by the USDOE should be a no-brainer.
What, then, are the political obstacles? Republicans seem a lost cause, given their reactionary zeal to eliminate USDOE.
And Democrats, surprisingly, are lukewarm. In general, they, like Republicans, supported the emasculation of the national Every Student Succeeds Act. They want to preserve the USDOE but show little to no interest in shaking up its institutional inertia. They kowtow to politically influential state and local officials and teacher unions who don’t want to diminish their power under “local control.”
In truth, a well-crafted national education policy shouldn’t be nearly the intrusion on local control that Republicans and Democrats fear. The foundation of the policy would be adequate funding (equalized on the basis of state wealth) and accountability measures that tie the purse strings to national standards and tests and evidence-based best practices.
That doesn’t mean the feds call all the shots. Such a policy would be impractical and unwise. Rather, we need what I have called a New Education Federalism. In short, the feds only get to say what the minimal national requirements should be. State and local school districts still get to say how the funds would be spent; they retain enormous flexibility to customize how schools are governed, teachers are trained, instructional materials are selected, and systems are generally managed.
This is not the political mission impossible you might think. Recent history includes the bipartisan support (led by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as governors and presidents) for higher national standards and greater national accountability, and the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top,” which conditioned more federal money on several reforms.
Also, keep in mind that such a national education policy wouldn’t differ much in principle from national policy in countless other fields. For example, health care, housing, Social Security, transportation, job safety and so on. States have fallen far short of assuring fundamental rights that are a floor, not ceiling, for national well-being. Especially in education and social welfare, the U.S. lags conspicuously behind the national policies of other countries.
Now, given the focus on the future of the USDOE, we should seize the moment to rethink and greatly strengthen the federal role in public education. Someday, courts will no longer be dominated by ultra-right judges, and could create momentum toward a long-overdue constitutional civil right to read and achieve state standards.
But we can’t afford to wait. The nation has never been more at-risk. And national leadership led by USDOE has never been more urgent.
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