scholarly journals From No Child Left Behind to Every Student Succeeds: Back to a Future for Education Federalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Heise

117 Columbia Law Review 1859 (2017).When passed in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act represented the federal government’s most dramatic foray into the elementary and secondary public school policymaking terrain. While critics emphasized the Act’s overreliance on standardized testing and its reduced school-district and state autonomy, proponents lauded the Act’s goal to close the achievement gap between middle- and upper-middle-class students and students historically ill served by their schools. Whatever structural changes the No Child Left Behind Act achieved, however, were largely undone in 2015 by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which repositioned significant federal education policy control in state governments. From a federalism standpoint, the Every Student Succeeds Act may have reset education federalism boundaries to favor states, far exceeding their position prior to 2001.While federal elementary and secondary education reform efforts since 2001 may intrigue legal scholars, a focus on educational federalism risks obscuring an even more fundamental development in educational policymaking power: its migration from governments to families, from regulation to markets. Amid a multidecade squabble between federal and state lawmakers over education policy authority, efforts to harness individual autonomy and market forces in the service of increasing children’s educational opportunity and equity have grown. Persistent demands for and increased availability of school voucher programs, charter schools, tax credits programs, and home schooling demonstrate families’ desire for greater agency over decisions about their children’s education. Parents’ calls for greater control over critical decisions concerning their children’s education and schooling options may eclipse state and federal lawmakers’ legislative squabbles over educational federalism.

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
Teresa Preston

Across the decades, the balance of power between the federal government, states, and local districts has shifted numerous times, and Kappan authors have weighed in on each of those shifts. Kappan Managing Editor Teresa Preston traces those shifts, beginning with the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which gave the federal government a larger role in public education. Further expansion occurred under the Carter administration, with the launch of the new federal Department of Education. As the new department continued operations under Reagan, its priorities expanded, but actual decision-making authority reverted to states. States, in turn, began involving themselves more with instructional and curricular matters, a trend that eventually made its way back to the federal level, with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Under NCLB, federal mandates had the effect of requiring state and local levels to take on additional responsibilities, without necessarily having the capacity to do so. This capacity issue remains a concern under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).


2011 ◽  
Vol 113 (9) ◽  
pp. 2018-2046
Author(s):  
Edward Pajak

Background/Context Scholars have described American culture in recent decades as narcissistic, manifested by displays of self-absorption tantamount to a pathological syndrome that has reached epidemic proportions. An education reform movement that is highly critical of public schools, teachers, and students has simultaneously emerged, espousing a wide array of seemingly disconnected innovations and punitive sanctions. Prior efforts to critically analyze these reform efforts have focused on the historical workings of power and knowledge by supporting reflective, emancipatory knowledge and action while overlooking the insights offered by psychoanalytic theory. Consequently, the impact of education policies on the identities of teachers and the personal relationships between teachers and students has not been thoroughly or sufficiently understood. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article represents a tentative step toward understanding the social and psychological underpinnings of education reform in the United States during the last quarter century. The reform movement is interpreted as being rooted in specific psychological processes associated with narcissistic parenting. Psychoanalytic concepts are employed to illustrate how educators and the general public have become accomplices in their own subjugation. A review of literature that addresses narcissistic parenting yielded eight characteristic behavioral patterns: expectations of perfection in children, particularly with regard to intellect; a grandiose sense of superiority and entitlement; relentless fault-finding; projection of personal fantasies onto children; an absence of empathy for children and their needs; a preoccupation with control; conditional approval; and a well-intentioned view of their own self-centered motives and insensitive actions as being beneficial for children. These conceptual formulations provided a basis for examining proposals and policies found in the National Commission on Excellence in Education's 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, and provisions of the more recent No Child Left Behind legislation. Research Design This analytic essay uses a review of the literature, including psychoanalytic research on narcissism and narcissistic parenting as well as contemporary critical theory related to education reform, to examine arguments and policies evidenced in A Nation at Risk and No Child Left Behind. Conclusions/Recommendations A prevailing “narcissistic education policy style” is posited, which denies the true learning needs of students; disempowers classroom teachers and schools by undermining trust in self and others; and reproduces narcissistic dynamics within the culture. Elements of an alternative education policy more focused on the needs of students are proposed, along with a call to recognize the right of children to be treated with the respect accorded to fully formed human beings.


2006 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROD PAIGE

In this essay, former secretary of education Rod Paige depicts the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as the culmination of more than half a century of urgent but largely unheeded calls for reform of the nation's public education system. He explains the rationale for the design of NCLB and responds to several criticisms of the legislation, including the notion that it is a one-size-fits-all mandate and that its improvement targets are unrealistic. He further argues that the nation's public schools must become more responsive to the needs of students and their families in order to remain viable. Finally, he contends that subsequent reauthorizations should stay true to NCLB's original goal of holding school systems accountable for equipping all students with the academic skills on which America's future depends.


2021 ◽  
pp. 019791832198927
Author(s):  
Kriti Vikram

This article examines the link between paternal migration and children’s arithmetic and reading achievement, using the 2005 and 2012 waves of the national India Human Development Survey (IHDS). Additionally, it investigates if fathers’ migration is associated with increased investments in children’s education and time spent on educational activities. Using propensity score matching, this article finds that fathers’ current and long-term migration, defined as being a migrant in both IHDS waves, is positively associated with children’s education. However, the benefits of paternal migration are experienced more frequently by sons than by daughters. Sons of migrant fathers demonstrate higher reading and arithmetic achievement, benefit from higher education expenditure, and spend more time on educational activities than sons of non-migrant fathers. Daughters of migrant fathers exhibit higher reading skills and receive higher investments in education but are no different from daughters of non-migrant fathers in time spent on educational activities and arithmetic achievement. These results suggest a gendered process at play in remittance utilization, with sons experiencing a more robust remittance effect. Nevertheless, it is promising to note that daughters also gain from the economic and social remittances received by left-behind families in a modernizing India.


Inclusion ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Clare Schuh ◽  
Kimberly M. Knackstedt ◽  
Jake Cornett ◽  
Jeong Hoon Choi ◽  
Daniel T. Pollitt ◽  
...  

Abstract This article discusses equity-based inclusive education and federal policy drivers that can be used to make positive sustainable change in state, district, and local practice to improve the academic, social, and behavioral outcomes for all students including students with extensive support needs and those with labels of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Educational policies addressed include the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA), Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and civil rights legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The policy domain feature of the Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT) model is examined regarding how it was implemented in districts and schools, working toward the goal of providing an equity-based inclusive education for all students. Translating federal education policy into state, district, and local practice requires leadership and political courage to align federal, state, and district policy with the vision and values of equity-based, inclusive education.


2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-590
Author(s):  
JASON DAVIS

AbstractMany Guatemalan parents migrate to the United States with the intention of returning earned income to improve the human capital prospects of their left-behind children. This laudable goal is achieved by many – arguably benefiting girls more than boys. However, negative international migration externalities including migration failure, familial abandonment, psychosocial harms and a culture of migration that disproportionally limits the educational prospects of boys need to be considered. Based on qualitative field interviews in western Guatemala with parents and educators, this article presents a nuanced view of economic migration and left-behind children's education, capturing both its remittance-related benefits and parental absence harms.


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