Margaret asked in the previous post whether education policy was primarily made at the national, state, or local level. The short answer is that it is made at all three, but the pendulum has definitely swung to the national level. I’ve been an educator for twenty years, and the pace and breadth at which the national government has inserted itself into educational policy during that time is breathtaking.

I think a short history lesson is in order and I’ll try not to make it too boring! From the “Ye Olde Deluder Satan” Law passed by Massachusetts in colonial America to “No Child Left Behind”, government at various levels has had an interest in education. The Massachusetts law provided for schools that would teach children to read, thus enabling them to read the Bible and be better equipped to fend off Satan’s machinations. This was the first law regarding public education in the United States.

Education is an area assigned in the Constitution as a responsibility of the states. For most of our history states have chartered schools and left the management of those schools to local citizens. Local school boards chose their administrators and teachers and governed what was taught, how it was taught, and what was acceptable in their own schools. These local schools rarely had interference from the state government and never from the national government. States began to intervene more in the 20^th century, establishing graduation requirements, licensing teachers, and providing aid to local schools.

One strand that has been consistent over the past 200 years in education has been equity, the gradual expansion of access to schools to all children. Many early schools were only open to white male children of landowners. The 19^th century saw an expansion of educational opportunity to include most white children, including women, although the doors were closed to many of them at the college and university level. Black children were gradually given access to public education, albeit at segregated, often underfunded and inferior schools. When World War II was fought this was the status of public education----locally controlled schools, segregated by race and often by class, loosely controlled by state governments, with most important policies set by local boards.

Equity is the issue that first got the federal government involved in public education. The Supreme Court decision, “Brown vs Board of Education” in the 1950’’s, which ruled segregated schools to be unconstitutional, marked a dramatic intervention of the national government into education. President Eisenhower ordered National Guard soldiers to enforce the court’s ruling. When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik the feds got involved again, passing legislation to fund training in math and science. During the “War on Poverty” in the 1960’s Congress became concerned about the plight of poor children scattered in public schools across the nation and launched what we know as Title I….aid to local schools to provide extra funds to local schools to aid these children. In another move to increase equity, Congress passed IDEA, guaranteeing the right of children with disabilities to receive a free and appropriate public education. This expansion of equal rights left most American children with a right to receive a public education by the 1970’s.

All this attention to matters of equity did not impact how schools operated in areas of curriculum, instructional methods, quality of teaching, quality of programs, what teachers were hired, or any of the other matters that go to the heart of what schooling is. As long as schools met loose state requirements, they could teach what they wanted in any manner they wished to teach it. Principals and teachers were primarily accountable to school boards.

Remember the report, “A Nation At Risk” in the early 1980’s? In rather dramatic language this report castigated the quality of American schools, made unfavorable comparisons to education in other countries, and cast the poor quality of teaching and learning as a national disgrace, potentially dangerous to the survival of the nation. This report spurred a reform movement that swept across the nation in the 1980’s and 1990’s. State governments launched reforms and greatly increased regulation of schools. State education policy began to trump local policy in areas that the state had never been involved with before. Increased standards for teacher certification and high school graduation, accountability reviews, state approval of textbooks….all of these things made the states involved in ways they had never been before.

But the feds were coming too. Local schools found themselves under national requirements if they wished to continue to receive federal money. Then came “No Child Left Behind”, an intervention in education at the national level that has drastically altered the landscape of what happens in schools. States align their policies to meet NCLB’s mandates if they wish to receive those federal funds.

So here we are, a nation with a history of state and local control of schools with the federal government now increasing their presence in every area from teacher certification to curriculum to testing of student achievement. Is it only a matter of time before there is a national curriculum, the same things being taught in every 4^th grade class no matter where in the country you move? A national teaching certification process? National standards for high school graduation?

It has changed our politics. Presidential, gubernatorial, and mayoral candidates sound sometimes like they are running for school superintendent. The last two presidents we had achieved fame as governors for education reforms in their own states, and you better believe aspiring candidates have taken note of that fact. Mayors are talking about mentoring programs and school partnerships, and in some cities have actually taken over operation of the schools. No longer is it left to school boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers to determine what happens in schools. Everyone wants a bite of the educational pie.

Where do you strike the balance between a national effort to improve efficiency and student achievement and the ability of local citizens to direct the public education of their children? You’ll be hearing more and more of this debate in the years to come.

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