New Directions: Federal Education Policy in the Twenty-First Century
March 1, 1999
Marci Kanstoroom and Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Editors
Published By
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
In Cooperation With
The Manhattan Institute
March 1999
Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- Chapter Summaries
- Overview: Thirty-Four Years of Dashed Hopes
- Today's Programs: How Well Do They Work?
- Title I: Despite the Best of Intentions
- Title I: Wrong Help at the Wrong Time
- Title II: Does Professional Development Work?
- Title IV: Neither Safe nor Drug-Free
- School-to-Work: Right Problem, Wrong Solution
- Beyond the Beltway: The Case for Change
- Michigan: Setting Priorities Straight
- Arizona: Back Off, Washington
- Pennsylvania: Vesting Power in the People
- Colorado: Trust but Verify
- Houston: Washington...We Have a Problem
- New Directions: Federal Education Policy in the Twenty-First Century
- Student Performance: The National Agenda in Education
- Getting It Right the Eighth Time: Reinventing the Federal Role
- Contributors
Foreword
As we enter 1999, polls show that education remains the number one issue on voters' minds, and elected officials at every level of government are eager to get in on the action. Promising to make our schools better is as American as mom and apple pie. Who could oppose efforts by the President and Congress to turn failing schools around and ensure that every student has a qualified teacher?
With the thirty-four year old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) up for reauthorization this year, politicians in Washington are already proposing some brand-new programs to add to the mix of sixty plus that already occupy ESEA alone. But are more programs from Washington what our schools really need? More controls? More regulations? Might there be a different way to think about federal education policy? Perhaps even a better way?
The contributors to this volume -- a remarkable gathering of governors, state education chiefs, noted education experts, and journalists -- here take a close look at how today's federal education programs work. They paint a generally bleak picture. Developed in an era when U.S. schools faced radically different problems than they face today, the present array of ESEA programs is badly outdated. Instead of promoting the cause of better schools, these programs have begun to function as obstacles to the efforts of reform-minded states and schools.
The goal of the essays in this book is not to get Washington out of the education business, nor to slash, burn, or abolish anything, but to help envision a bold alternative to the existing federal role in education. The ESEA reauthorization cycle presents the nation with an opportunity to think anew, to imagine something different and, we believe, better for America's children, including especially the neediest among them. The essays in this volume provide a guide to how the federal role in education can be reinvented.
The book is divided into three parts: overviews of the federal role and how to rethink it, case studies that analyze the effectiveness of some of today's most prominent programs, and short essays describing how the present federal role appears from the perspectives of states and cities. Abstracts of the papers appear in the "Chapter Summaries" section that follows Rev. Flake's preface and again at the beginning of each chapter. Brief biographical sketches of the contributors appear at the end of the book.
To my delight, this volume is a joint product -- the first such -- of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the Manhattan Institute, a prominent research center with a special interest in urban affairs and education reform. As Rev. Floyd Flake, former Democratic congressman from Queens, notes in the preface, the story of the federal government's role in education is in many respects the story of a sincere but sorely flawed attempt to ensure equal educational opportunities for low-income children. The plight of children in New York City (and other large urban school districts) who are trapped in ineffective and often dangerous schools is what gives special urgency to the need to reinvent the federal role in education.
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is a private foundation that supports research, publications, and action projects in elementary/secondary education reform at the national level and in the vicinity of Dayton, Ohio. Further information can be obtained from our website (www.edexcellence.net) or by writing us at 1627 K Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006. (We can also be e-mailed through our website.) This report is available in full on the Foundation's website, and hard copies can be obtained by calling 1-888-TBF-7474 (single copies are free).
Chester E. Finn, Jr.,
President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and
John M. Olin Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Washington, DC
March 1999