The failure of neo conservative school reform. ( also known as neo liberal )
Schools exist in a social context. That social and economic context has a powerful effect on how well schools perform. There are many arguments that our schools are not preparing students sufficiently for the emerging global economy and global competition. Our high school completion rates are too low, our incarceration rates for young African American and Latino males are too high. We are not providing students with the human capital to overcome residential poverty. The society is asking schools to do more than they can do with their current resources. Schools can not overcome poverty and racial segregation-at least not as they are currently funded.
The current “crisis” in public education began during the Reagan Administration (1980-1988). The election of the Reagan Administration in 1980 ushered in a conservative political agenda in the U.S. A central tenet of this conservative agenda was to reduce public sector investment generally, including public education. In education literature “A Nation at Risk” (1983) became the manifesto for a conservative ideological assault on the nation’s public schools and eventually conservative domination of educational dialogue. Central components of this effort were demands for nationwide standards, an expansion of testing as both a mean and end, and the introduction of government supported privatization (tax support for private schools) in the form of vouchers. This conservative domination was consolidated in 2001 under George W. Bush with the major change toward placing federal mandates on schools PL 107-110, popularly known as No Child left Behind (NCLB). While the states and local communities provide most funding for schools (the federal government provides only about 11% of education funding) NCLB, along with advocacy from the Business Roundtable and other business lobbies, has largely been successful in shaping school policy toward testing and accountability.
The NCLB Act will be specifically analyzed in Chapter 13. For now, let us note that this two-decade effort of conservative school reform based upon increased testing and accountability has not substantially improved students’ scores in reading and math. (NAEP, 2004, Lee, 2007) However, the testing and accountability efforts have transformed teaching and schooling by controlling teachers more, making teaching less interesting and simultaneously supporting under funding of schools, a new tracking system, and the privatization of formerly public schools. (Nichols and Berliner 2007)
The domination of school reform dialogue by conservative political forces and corporate financed institutes (1983- 2008) produced a shift in the media discussion of school issues away from equal opportunity and toward analysis of the “achievement gap” the gap in scores between ethnic and economic groups. ( See figure 1.2) . The accountability movement stressed increased testing rather than relying upon teacher curriculum decision making. It is noticeable in this debate that the conservative policy advocates did not have their children or grandchildren in low income schools where the curriculum and teaching has too often been reduced to drill and test. Their children are in middle class schools – higher achieving schools- where the curriculum and teaching strategies remain more open, more child friendly, more divergent and where schools pursue multiple goals, not only improved test scores
In political terms this capture of the media agenda shifted responsibility for children’s educational achievement from the unequal government funding and placed it at the feet of teachers and education professionals while also demonizing teachers’ unions and other education professionals. The accountability and testing movement changed the educational debates away from discussion of democracy and multicultural education toward measuring achievement in math and reading.
These shifts were not accidental nor are they politically neutral. As teachers we need to understand schools and schooling as contested terrain. We are in a difficult situation; our students’ futures and the health of our democracy depend upon engaging in the struggle for democratic education. If we want democracy, we must educate for democracy. Democracy depends upon the participation of its members in the political, social, cultural and economic institutions. We educate for democracy through our public schools. The current federal law, No child left behind (NCLB) and most state school reform plans remove teachers, students and parents from active involvement in decision making about standards, testing, and curriculum, and restrict the decision making of elected school boards. That is, the federal law NLCB works against democratic participation and decision making. Schools are one of the primary institutions for the nurturing and the recreation of democracy. If, under NCLB, schools become less democratic, then our society itself becomes less democratic.
From: Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. 4th. edition.
2010. Allyn and Bacon.