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Domestic extempers can attest to the fact that questions about education reform never go away. From merit pay to vouchers to standardized testing, extempers must be able to handle topics pertaining to the American education system if they wish to successfully navigate domestic social rounds. Anxieties about American education have persisted since the nation’s founding, with President Thomas Jefferson warning that “If a nation expects to remain free and ignorant in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and what never shall be.” Americans have desired a strong education system to maintain the nation’s position as a political and economic superpower, enhance socioeconomic mobility and the “American dream,” and to solve social ills such as racial and gender inequalities. However, despite the federal government pouring more money into American schools since the 1960s, American students still lag behind their international counterparts in math, science, and reading. While political actors on both sides of the aisle agree that something must be done, they disagree over how to solve it and these divisions are being played out in Congress, states, and municipalities throughout the country.
This topic brief will cover three important topics pertaining to education reform in the United States: a reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), school voucher programs, and other education alternatives such as charter schools and homeschooling.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was arguably President George W. Bush’s biggest domestic policy achievement. Debated and negotiated in Congress prior to the September 11 terror attacks, which caused the Bush presidency to divert its attention from domestic issues to foreign affairs, NCLB was a bipartisan piece of legislation. While President Bush led the Republicans, late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts marshaled liberal Democrats behind the initiative. NCLB passed the House 384-45 and then passed the Senate 91-8. The legislation was then signed by President Bush in January 2002.
NCLB was a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. ESEA was part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and sought to provide more federal funds, referred to as Title I, to schools that enrolled large numbers of low-income students. Federal funding could help make up for property tax disparities between school districts, as those living in higher-income areas could generate more tax revenue for their schools than low-income areas. ESEA also intended to provide funding for school textbooks and research into effective education methods. One of the consequences of ESEA is that the federal government took a more influential role in education policymaking since it could tie federal funds to certain guidelines that schools had to meet. This became very important in subsequent federal education legislation pertaining to students with learning disabilities or that were learning English as a second language. A failure of school districts to comply with certain federal mandates could result in a loss of federal funding, which would harm the operational status of schools. Extempers should note that the provision of funding for states and school districts helps the federal government circumvent constitutional questions pertaining to the federal government establishing a uniform education standard (since the constitution does not expressly give the federal government power over education that is why states have wider latitude in setting education mandates).
The goal of NCLB was to reform American education by mandating that states use assessments to measure student progress, reveal those assessments to parents and other public stakeholders, set higher benchmarks for teacher training, and establish a set of consequences for schools that failed to meet annual yearly progress (AYP) targets. As governor of Texas, President Bush enacted a standards-based system of education reform that he thought was effective in improving the state’s math and reading scores. This system was grafted onto NCLB, with the idea being that schools would be more motivated to improve if their funding was jeopardized. As the Brookings Institution explains on February 5, if schools did not show yearly progress under NCLB they would have to design an improvement plan, offer parents the option to send their students to a nearby school that was improving, offer tutoring services to students that were not doing well, and then risked being taken over by state education officials if they did not improve within five years. NCLB also forced schools to issue annual report cards, which broke down the performance of important sub-groups such as students with disabilities, English as a Second Language (ESL) students, students receiving free or reduced lunch, and those of various racial backgrounds. This was a significant shift because schools typically released scores without this data, which critics alleged let them mask underachievement by groups that have traditionally been underserved in public schools. The end game of NCLB was for all students to be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014, something that was blasted at the time as an unrealistic benchmark.
Indeed, the unrealistic proficiency benchmark was just one of the various reasons educators soon came to criticize NCLB. Others argued that the law placed too much emphasis on standardized testing, which only exacerbated a “teaching to the test” mentality that overworked children and de-emphasized parts of the curriculum such as history, art, and music. Administrators and teachers’ unions complained that the law’s penalties were too harsh, as schools would lose funding if students relocated to another district and it would then become more difficult for a school to improve with fewer resources. Advocates of gifted children also alleged that NCLB provided few resources to help them, often causing these children to become bored and underserved in the classroom. Since the law allowed states to design their own assessments, education reformers blasted the law for letting states make their tests easier to ensure that their scores looked better to the federal government. Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, writes on February 14 that the law also set up lots of schools to fail, without providing lots of avenues for success. And finally, Democrats turned against the law by 2004, arguing that the Bush administration was underfunding it.
Congress has not reauthorized or amended NCLB since 2002. As a result, school districts are still accountable under the law. The Huffington Post writes on February 12 that since schools are open to sanction for not meeting the progress targets of NCLB they have petitioned the federal government for waivers. The Obama administration has chosen to waive the 2014 proficiency requirement within NCLB for certain schools and states so long as they adopt Common Core standards. These standards are aligned with targets for college-and-career readiness, but they have also come under fire because of what some deem as their unrealistic expectations for younger students, and their de-emphasizing of liberal arts education for science, math, and engineering-based fields (extempers are urged to check out our topic brief last year on the Common Core). The conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes on February 19 that the Republican Party has become hostile to Common Core and the Obama administration’s use of waivers, arguing that Common Core constitutes the federal government’s intrusion into local education and that the use of waivers gives far too much discretion to the Secretary of Education.
In 2013, House Republicans formulated a reauthorization bill for NCLB. It failed to receive much traction in Congress due to a Democratic-controlled Senate, but now that the Republicans control both chambers it is very possible that the Obama administration will face a choice this year about whether to sign or veto a reauthorization bill. House Committee Education Chair John Kline (R-MN) recently navigated his Student Success Act (SSA) through committee on a party-line vote. The SSA, according to The Huffington Post article previously cited, would allow states to decide how to handle failing schools and would allow Title I funds to follow low-income students to a new public school if they were trapped in a failing one. The SSA would also prohibit the Secretary of Education from mandating a change in state curriculum standards in order to receive a NCLB waiver. Democrats have opposed the SSA because they argue it would withdraw funding from public schools. According to U.S. News and World Report on February 13, the White House alleges that the SSA reauthorization would reduce funding for schools by $7 billion and it opposes the portability of Title I funding, saying that it withdraws funding from schools that need it. The White House argues that 112 school districts that serve 37,000 students would see a Title I reduction of 50% under the SSA, resulting in a loss of $700 million, while those who had fewer impoverished students would gain $470 million in funding. House Republicans allege that President Obama’s rhetoric is overly alarmist and misguided. The portability of Title I funding, according to The Atlantic on February 14, is the biggest issue that will surround a reauthorization bill.
In the Senate, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is leading the Republican effort for NCLB reauthorization. In contrast with Kline, Alexander has pledged to work across the aisle with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to find an acceptable reauthorization bill. Alexander has titled his bill as the Every Student Ready for College or Career Act of 2015. Education Week on February 18 writes that the proposed bill would no longer require states to do annual statewide testing in reading and math of students in grades 3-8 and once in high school, as required under NCLB, and districts would be able to choose their own assessment calendar. The idea behind Alexander’s bill is to get away from “teaching to the test,” which appeals to teachers’ unions that, as The Washington Post writes on February 9, favor a publication of testing results, but do not want them to factor into the evaluation of a school’s performance. There is also a sizable pushback against state testing requirements as an “opt out” movement toward testing is spreading from New York to surrounding states. The Philadelphia Inquirer on February 15 explains that 60,000 children refused to take state-mandated tests in New York last year, and eight states are now rolling back testing mandates. However, federal officials are skeptical of giving the states wide latitude over assessment schedules. After all, can you really have national progress if all fifty states mandate different assessments and are teaching in different ways?
Extempers should realize that the fight over NCLB, like other education issues, creates interesting and unorthodox political coalitions. This is typical of education issues in general. For example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is trying to tie 50% of a teacher’s evaluation to their students standardized test scores. This, according to The Washington Post on February 9, has led to teachers turning against elements of the New York Democratic Party, which has largely favored teachers’ unions in the past. In addition, The Christian Science Monitor reports on February 11 that teachers’ unions opposition to NCLB makes them allies of the Tea Party, as both oppose the federal mandates in the legislation. However, they are opposed by a block of civil rights groups that argue that even though NCLB has its shortcomings, its focus on minority sub-groups has been beneficial. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and the National Council of La Raza have criticized Republican drafts of NCLB reauthorization bills for eliminating this focus, thereby jeopardizing the education of minority children across the country.
Therefore, extempers need to think about the following questions when it comes to the NCLB reauthorization debate: what type of assessments should be mandated and who should determine the curriculum that they are tied to? Should the federal government increase Title I funding (as President Obama prefers), should it keep funding at present levels and allow for the portability of Title I funding to go with a low-income student to another school (as the GOP prefers), or should it raise Title I funding and do portability? And what mandates should school districts follow to improve the academic performance of minority and disability sub-groups?
The Voucher Debate
A debate that has occurred in American education longer than NCLB is over the use of school vouchers. Vouchers are a system whereby a governmental entity provides funding for a student, usually from a low-income background, to attend a private school. The Economist on February 14 explains that twenty-four American states currently use vouchers and the modern drive for them began after 1990 when Milwaukee, Wisconsin began experimenting with a voucher program in order to improve the academic performance of low-income students. The core idea behind vouchers is that poor students are trapped in urban schools that perform poorly on state testing. If these students were instead given some form of financial assistance, whether it be through a direct grant of funds from the government or through tax credits to their parents for tuition and/or to a business that supports a scholarship fund for low-income students, then they could escape from a poor education environment and have a better chance of attaining academic success. The Economist notes that 22% of students from the top income quartile of families in the United States attend private schools, so vouchers are a way to confront part of the income inequality problem in American education. Republicans argue that voucher programs are a way to inject competition into public schools, as schools that perform poorly will lose pupils. Democrats are largely against vouchers, alleging that they take funding away from public schools and cause government to fund private schools with a religious mission in violation of the First Amendment.
The battleground over a voucher scheme not only exists within NCLB reauthorization, as voucher-type arguments are at the core of whether Title I funding should follow a student seeking a new school, but also within the District of Columbia. Politico writes on February 9 that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was one of the early advocates for vouchers for the District’s public school system, which usually rates as one of the worst in the nation. President Bill Clinton vetoed a bill to establish a voucher program for the District during his administration (keep in mind that the federal government controls education within D.C. because it is a federal territory), but President George W. Bush signed legislation creating one in 2004. Today, 6,000 students have received benefits from this voucher program, but President Obama has sought to eliminate it. The Washington Times writes on February 8 that the President’s $4 trillion budget attempts to cut the D.C. voucher program, which carries a price tag of $20 million. Early in his first term, President Obama tried to cut the voucher program as well, but it led to protests by African-American and Latino parents on Capitol Hill, many of whom were joined by sympathetic Republican legislators.
Republicans sense that vouchers might provide them with a way to divide the loyalty that racial minorities have shown the Democratic Party over the last several decades. They argue that President Obama sends his daughters to the Sidwell Friends School in D.C., which is one of the premier private schools in the country, yet he does not favor a voucher program to give low-income youth, especially minority youth, that same opportunities. The President’s supporters counter that he favors a strengthened public school system with more funding, which vouchers would serve to undermine. However, vouchers have shown to be very popular with minority parents across the country, thereby putting their interests against some Democratic politicians, as well as teachers’ unions, which are another strong Democratic constituency. Republicans such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz have taken to calling school choice, whether through vouchers or charter schools (as discussed below), as the “civil rights issue of the twenty-first century,” which mirrors language used by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Dallas Morning News writes on February 10 that some Republican states are pushing for larger voucher programs, as Texas is seeking to establish $100 million in tax credits for businesses that donate money to scholarships to help 20,000 low-income Texans attend better schools. However, there are some Republicans that do not favor vouchers. Politico explains that those who come from rural states do not understand the need to pursue the issue, and the Cato Institute back in 2006 warned that Republican attempts at pushing a voucher program may backfire. Cato notes that if the federal government provides funds for a voucher program that it would eventually lead to federal control over private school curriculum, discipline policies, and teacher salary scales. As a result, vouchers could become a Trojan horse for reducing the effectiveness and autonomy of the private school system.
Yet the big question that needs to be asked about any type of school choice option is does it work? With regards to vouchers the results are mixed. The Economist article previously cited explains that a twenty-five year study of Milwaukee’s voucher program that was controlled for race, income, and gender found that students who attended private schools with a voucher did no better than their public school counterparts on state tests. This would seem to spell defeat for voucher schemes, but supporters counter with another argument: vouchers provide the same education for less money. Studies have shown that the voucher programs in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. are more cost effective, with a voucher costing the government $8,500 per student versus $17,500 for a public school student. Therefore, vouchers may not necessarily be a cure all for America’s education woes, but they may help the parents of students who are struggling in a public school setting, and they may provide a more cost-effective solution to some of the funding problems states are experiencing.
Charter Schools & Homeschooling
Over the last two decades, two alternative education options have grown in popularity in the United States: charter schools and homeschooling. Policymakers have been paying more attention to both models in recent years, especially as they have become more popular options for parents.
Charter schools are schools that receive government funding, but unlike public schools, they can establish their own curriculum. Supporters of charters argue that they can try to reach students, especially from low-income, urban backgrounds in ways that public schools cannot. Charter schools sometimes have different hours than a public school model and they are more free to hire teachers that do not have the same levels of certification as public schools. I highly encourage extempers to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman” to attain some insight into how charter schools operate in areas such as Harlem, New York. The documentary is pro-charter, so that bias must be considered, but it can provide greater understanding of how advocates of charters are framing the education debate.
Education Week on February 11 writes that more than three million students now attend charter schools, with enrollment increasing by 14% over 2013-2014 levels during the 2014-2015 academic year. This is the highest charter school enrollment number in American history. Parents of low-income students have come to see charters as preferable to public schools in some areas of the country, arguing that they create a more challenging curriculum, demand more of students in terms of discipline and accountability, and offer a greater chance of getting into colleges. However, not all charters are the same. Studies have shown that while some charter programs have had success, others do no better and sometimes worse than their public school counterparts. The Washington Post on February 19 also says that oversight of charters has been lacking in Washington, D.C., which recently revoked the charter given to the Dorothy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter School after its founder Kent Amos allegedly diverted millions given to the school to a management company for his personal gain.
Critics of charter schools allege that they harm public education by taking students out of the public system, thereby reducing the funding that low-income schools need. They also argue that charters have an unfair benefit over public schools by being allowed to select the students they wish to attend their institutions, thereby not having to deal with the same disciplinary headaches (supporters of charters refute this by noting that many are required to hold lotteries for admissions if more people apply than there are spaces for them). Finally, the argument against charters is that they take public money without having to adopt the same accountability as public schools. By being allowed to innovate on curriculum, opponents charge that charters can actually harm students because their innovations may not work and may actually set students back.
The battle over charter schools is a significant one in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and other urban areas. It pits the interests of parents, largely of minority children, against teachers’ unions and Democratic politicians that have been skeptical of charter school systems. Debates have moved beyond whether charters should exist to how much charters should be able to expand. Anti-charter forces want to constrain the growth of charter schools, while pro-charter forces favor a more aggressive growth strategy that they hope will compel failing public schools to reform. Such battles are already giving big city mayors such as New York City’s Bill de Blasio headaches, so extempers should always look at the education section of major newspapers such as The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post to follow the latest charter school battles.
The other education alternative that has grown in popularity in recent years is homeschooling. The Huffington Post writes on February 9 that the homeschooling movement saw significant growth in the 1980s when religious parents withdrew their children from public schools because they did not favor a secular-based education model. However, the reasons for homeschooling are beginning to change. As The Huffington Post indicates, only 16% of homeschooling families are pursuing this education option for religious reasons. Other reasons include giving a student with a learning disability more one-on-one instruction, avoiding bullying in public schools, having reservations about the Common Core curriculum, or parents believing that their child is bored by the slow pace of instruction at their local school. Another reason, as The Atlantic writes on February 17, is tied in with race as 220,000 African-American children are currently being homeschooled. African-American parents allege that they are homeschooling to escape the “culture of low expectations” that confront minority youth in public schools and they may also have reservations about how minorities are handled in terms of school discipline. The Atlantic explains that African-Americans are the fastest growing demographic for homeschooling nationwide, constituting 10% of the homeschool population versus 16% for public schools.
The advent of the Internet has been a boon for homeschooling. Students can now watch online lectures, join online communities that cater to homeschool students, and their parents have a wider array of resources to pull from in educating their children. In addition, parents have better access to tutoring networks and some states, such as North Carolina and Florida, have established online school programs that homeschool students can join and receive instruction in advanced courses. The Huffington Post article from February 9 explains that 3.4% of American schoolchildren are now homeschooled and that the practice is currently legal in all fifty states. However, states differ in their requirements for homeschool children, with some mandating the taking of standardized tests and requiring paperwork to be filed on an annual basis to show that learning is taking place.
Opponents of homeschooling allege that parents who choose the practice are harming their children. They argue that parents who are doing so are not qualified to teach their children and that they are inhibiting their children’s social development. While some of these concerns are legitimate, technology is making the first one become less of a concern. And homeschoolers tend to congregate in the same communities, with parents arranging for collective activities and meetings so homeschoolers can interact with each other. States such as Virginia are also looking into the possibility of allowing homeschool students to participate in public school athletics, which also provides for socialization beyond a one-on-one homeschool environment.
Yet one of the biggest criticisms of homeschooling is that it is a direct expression of parental dissatisfaction with the public school model. Some of these reasons are tied to religion and politics and if homeschooling were to continue to grow in popularity there is a fear that it could aggravate social divisions within the United States. In Europe, Germany bans homeschooling because it wishes to “counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.” Critics of Germany’s policies allege that it violates individual freedom and the American Home School Legal Defense Association argues that it constitutes “dress-up totalitarianism.” Some critics of homeschooling have argued that it should be banned in the United States, as it contravenes the goal of having a tolerant, multicultural society. Nevertheless, such a push to prohibit homeschooling is not likely to succeed in the near future since a federal proposal, which would have to tie federal funds in with states making the practice illegal, would be unlikely to clear Congress.
Therefore, the field of education reform is quite dynamic at the moment. Debates over the reauthorization of NCLB, school voucher programs, charter schools, and homeschooling are likely to continue into the next presidential administration and could become significant political issues for 2016. When talking about these issues, extempers should tread lightly. Most of your judges will be a stakeholder in the public education model (teachers, parents, or students), so completely bashing public schools is not the way to go. The best approach is to talk about the problems of public schools, why those problems exist (paying attention to the claims of teachers’ unions and opponents), and then trying to explain how the best approach might be somewhere in the middle. After all, most are in agreement that America does face significant public education problems, so it is your job to build some consensus for how those problems can be tackled for the benefit of the nation’s youth.