The Role of the Federal Government in K-12 Education: From equality to equity
The federal government has had a role in education, whether directly or indirectly, dating back to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 during the year the constitution was ratified. From the Morrill Act of 1862, which provided acres of land and other land grants to states for the production of colleges, to the E-Rate program, which provided schools and libraries telecommunication and internet access, these all had an impact on the future of education. The goal was improving education — though for different reasons — and the opportunities that came from it has since been a focal point. More recently, the federal government has had an immense role in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 and legislation that shortly followed it through bipartisan support. Corrected by the Common Core Standards (CCSS) by creating college-and career-ready standards, what seems to be apparent today is that there is not much debate on the matter of if the federal government should be involved in education, but a question of how they should be involved and what pieces of legislation would help schools the most — the answer to this question is grounded in equity and the focus on addressing the true needs of disadvantaged students.
When NCLB was implemented and proposed (2001–2002), it emphasized “teaching to test” rather than teaching to learn — aside from the test itself. Enacted as a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the intentions were to set high standards for students and to hold both the teachers and schools accountable for meeting these standards. NCLB consisted of high-stakes testing, and as Alfie Kohn points out, the engine of the legislation was punishment which was designed to humiliate and hurt the schools rather than assist the schools that hurt the most. With the high-stakes testing came the adequate yearly progress (AYP), requiring school districts to notify parents and offer alternative options if the school did not meet the required standards in the given amount of time. To offer criticism to AYP, often a “failing school” that did not meet the AYP standards and proficiency requirements was stripped funding, and some of these schools perhaps needed the funding for some of their programs. In essence, the legislation was designed to hold teachers accountable without the government providing the necessary support to the schools. Nonetheless, what is apparent in all of this is that the legislation yielded more benefits for advantaged Americans than the disadvantaged.
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) under former President Barack Obama corrected some things, but there was still room for improvement. The focus was still on the outcome, and with Race to The Top (RTT), President Obama believed that teachers should be linked to student performance. However, even with states having the opportunity to opt-in, ESSA and RTT still exploited the apparent inequality between states. RTT, in fact, did award states that had the most capacity and the states with poorer schools and communities were left behind.
The legislative acts that have had an impact on education, from NCLB to ESSA, all had elements of equality and the pursuit of excellence. Some believed that if the government funneled money into the school systems that the result would yield improvements, thus narrowing the achievement gap. Others believed that in light of accountability, the government must hold consequences to both the students and the teachers if the set academic standards were not met. All of these steps were done in “good faith,” but if we want to continue to move into the direction of positively reforming education, the actions have to shift from legislation based on equality and excellence to equity and excellence. Equality was beneficial — to some — and the Hunt Institute outlined these new standards and the need to correct the problem that NCLB created. The response was CCSS, which set a standard bar of learning for all schools if they opted in, but the federal government can go a step forward by actually addressing the needs and circumstances of those behind the schoolhouse gate.
There are several ways to define equity but when we talk about its role in education, it is closely related to meeting students where they are instead of holding them to an academic standard and asking them to meet that standard without the proper assistance. Yes, setting the field of education equal in the way of creating standards for all students to meet is something that should be done — the argument is not in setting standards — but the federal government should be making an active effort to produce measures that assist students who do not start at the same place in the race of their educational journey. The students who are the furthest behind — which usually include students of color and those who are low-income — require additional resources to catch up, excel, and ultimately, close the achievement gap. The federal government has to recognize that a blanket piece of legislation does not take into account the factors that are beyond the school’s control, like a student and family’s socioeconomic status for example.
The fact of the matter is that there is indeed an achievement gap that became more pronounced with high-stakes testing. If we are to get to a place in educational history where we can truly work to close this gap, the federal government has to acknowledge and produce legislation that is grounded in equity, yet still has a focus on excellence and performance. These do not have to be mutually exclusive, rather in the same way that NCLB and ESSA received bipartisan support, the same has to happen when addressing the academic needs of disadvantaged students.
Originally published at https://www.mustafaalismith.com on April 14, 2020.
