In 1996, just a year into my work in schools, I read Regie Routmanâs book âLiteracy at the Crossroads.â It wasnât just a book about literacy; it was a book about the coming age of edupolitics (or âpoliteracyâ in this case). Ms. Routmanâs essential thesis was this: while educators may not have signed up for political lives, running a first grade classroom was about to become just as dicey as running for office. And so it has.
Heading into the second decade of the 21st century, few issues have become more politicized than education. Historically, as political awareness rises over time on any given matter, our nationâs politicians have turned themselves to the task of dealing with it and making things better. (Slavery and Civil Rights are the two most notable exceptions, and I think the connection between these two issues and education is more than just a coincidence.) Progress is often slow in coming, but even our cleverly designed sloth-like system of self-hobbling government usually manages to get some good work done.
But not with education.
Somehow, education leaves our politicians forever flummoxed. And this yearâs mid-term election has merely replaced the Party of the Bewildered with the Party of the Bemused. Will the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or ESEA) break out along slightly different lines now? Perhaps. Will Arne Duncan be denied some future spending money? Perhaps. Will eccentric Tea Party types try to teach us important lessons about the U.S. Constitution, along with leading the charge for improved spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Almost certainly. But at least thereâll be some entertainment value in that.
If youâre a kid sitting in a school lunchroom as I sit down to begin writing this piece at noon on Wedenesday, November 3, I can say with some certainty that trading your PB&J for a shot at real education reform is likely to leave both your stomach and your mind a little empty. Even if you donât like PB&J, I donât think youâre going to like much of whatâs coming down the pike in education any better. Mostly, itâs the same old same oldâjust more of it. Rather than working smarter with bold, innovative ideas, weâve decided simply to work harder at things that havenât worked very well in the past. What does this mean for you? Probably just more hopelessly boring homework and tedious tests.
We do education and politics like this because this is what seems to help people get elected. Nobody ever won a race by being âsmartâ on crime or âsmartâ on terrorism. People only win if theyâre âtoughâ on societyâs ills. A kind of anti-intellectual populism has often run through American politics. Since being smart is stupid, politicians would much rather be tough. Being âtoughâ on education means that education is going to be tough on you, teenagers, because guess what? Youâre the only ones in the system who donât have a vote. This is nothing less than education without representation. Maybe itâs time for a little tea party of your own.
The are only two things that are likely to change in coming years: Which party gets blamed for failing kids, and the folks you will eventually get to vote for to replace themâwho will then be failing more kids. Iâll admit there is a kind of perverse fairness about this as everyone continues to get a mediocre education. At least we wonât all be crabbing so much in the old folks home. As the decades tick by, fewer and fewer of us will be able to look back fondly on the âgood old daysâ of American education and bemoan the current state of affairs as somehow inferior.
Though education consumes a lot of time for many familiesâand for a small percentage, their money as wellâthere really isnât much to think about when it comes to the political dimension of schooling because regardless of who we elect, very little ever changes in our schools. This may just be because education is hard to change. Or it may be that the people we elect have no idea how to change it. Thereâs probably truth in both of these notions.
But the biggest truth of all is that school is not that different today than it was in 1983 when we boldly pronounced ourselves âA Nation at Riskâ. Chester Finn, former Assistant Secretary of Education and probably one of our countryâs most respected education historians, summed up the state of education reform earlier this year in an article called âThe End of the Education Debateâ that he wrote for National Affairs that: âThe education reform debate as we have known it for a generation is creaking to a halt… and the conceptual framework built around them, are clearly outliving their usefulness.â
Record funding from DOE is driving reform, just like record funding from Bill Gates and other philanthropists is driving DOEâs agenda. But one wonders even more than usual about why education doesnât just take a wide turn into something that makes a little more sense. Weâre all pushing the pedal to the metal on reform these days, but to the extent that the past predicts the future, we can safely say that even if we can get the buses running faster, we still wonât have figured out any new routes.
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. But itâs clear that edupolitics makes even stranger ed fellows. We have a Democratic president pushing Republican themes and now a Republican House, and a revitalized not-so-minority Republican Senate, about to push their weight around. One might think that with a president who acts like a Republican on education, and a powerful new crop of Republican legislators, we might move even more strongly in a Republic direction on schools.
But what would such a directional move look like? As many folks like Mr. Finn have pointed out, the Republicans long ago won every major argument about reform. The Democrats just signed on because they didnât have any workable ideas of their own, and because they didnât want to look stupid. So all weâre going to get is more of what weâve got: More testing, more charters, more choice, more merit pay programs, more market-based reforms. But, as Mr. Finn points out, this is not at all what we need. Suburban Republicans must understand that, as Finn points out, local control and funding aren’t panaceas; school choice activists must learn that the difference between private school choice and greater public school flexibility, variety and accountability isn’t all that different; and that national standards are needed to improve education. Centrist Democrat and progressive reformers on the other hand, will need to realize that the public school monopoly will no longer work; that teachers will need to be held accountable; and that we will need to go to the model of self-governing governing schools with control over their own budgets and staffing.
One might credit President Obama for leapfrogging the Republicans, and for bamboozling us all with his Bush-like approach to education. But if you think about it, after the mid-term, there should be very little tension left about which reforms our nation will pursue. But, as Mr. Finn points out, all weâll be doing is pursuing the same tired reforms together. Quality reforms, not consensus reforms, will make the difference.
Education is full of sound and fury. But as Shakespeare wrote, and Faulkner alluded to, most of it is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. There was little point in moving education up to the top of our agenda this Tuesday as we headed into and out of the voting booth because regardless of who we elected, education is unlikely to change. Education gets a lot of pressâand well it shouldâbut itâs always a down-ballot issue regardless of whatever else may be in play. We all know that Carville said, âItâs the economy, stupid!â We know, too, that no one has ever said, âItâs education, stupid!â Though it sure does seem stupid for us to keep ignoring education at the ballot box. And not entirely unlike the way our country ignored slavery and Civil Rights for so very, very long. Could it be that weâve always known exactly what we were doing with education in this country? Is there a connection between what is happening today in schools and laws against slaves learning to read or literacy tests for voting? Is there really much difference between the phrase âlife, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessâ and the phrase âlife, literacy, and the pursuit of happinessâ?
Education is a top political theme but it a isnât a top political issue because few of us âwalk our chalkâ when it comes to matching words with actions. Most of us say that education is very important. After all, we believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Sadly, however, the greatest love of all turns out to be how much politicians love being elected. All this patriotic pap about the future of our democracy and our global competitiveness is nothing more than a self-serving smoke screen as politicians of all parties fail to take actions that are consistent with the beliefs they profess about the importance of education.
Yes, of course, the children are our futureâliterally. But we donât do much to teach themâor much to help their teachers teach them. Education is not a real political issue because political discourse on education is really just code for caring and compassion (and sometimes veiled racism or classism), most of which is entirely sincere. Iâm not sure whether education is a straw man or a red herring. But itâs a metaphor for somethingâa phantom, a figment, perhaps even at times a ruse. The politicians Iâve known have all been incredibly sincere about education. They really do want to help. But euphemism quickly replaces euphoria shortly after the votes are counted. When it comes to education, most legislators remind me of Robert Redford at the end of âThe Candidateâ. Whisked away on victory night by an ecstatic throng of supporters, Redford finally reaches the safety of his official car, turns to his campaign manager and says, âWhat do we do now?â
Perhaps the simplest reason why education is not a real political issue is that so few of us have a real commitment to itâa commitment that extends beyond convenient, self-serving platitudes to the mastering of hard facts, the making of hard decisions, the doing of hard work, and the embracing of hard realities about learning, leading, and living in the world.
Itâs an odd thing for me as a lifelong liberal and son of a big city public school teacher, to admit that Iâm tired of the government reaching into the school house swinging blunt instruments like an out of control rock band (or Charlie Sheen having an âallergic reactionâ to some medication). Since World War II, the federal government has succeeded primarily at increasing educational access to historically marginalized populations. This is a reasonable role but it has more to do with human decency than it does with building a decent system of education. Improving access to education is a significant achievement. But achieving it has little do with improving the quality of our schools.
Many states list education as the top priority in their constitutions. But while education is often a top expense, itâs clearly never a top priority. Locally, we fund education inequitably through property tax approaches that are unlikely ever to change, except to the extent that they will surely continue to favor the interests of property holders over the interests of those whose children most need our help.
Government is good when it comes to making us have schools, and it does a decent job of getting us to let kids into them. But once they get there, I think governmentâs track record is not so hot, and that itâs influence should be limited accordinglyânot because government doesnât have a role to play but merely because our government seems to play it so poorly. The game of education is won and lost in the classroom, not at the ballot box. We all know this intuitively, even if we donât want to deal with it in a healthy, constructive, and responsible way.
I say all this based not on ideologyâmy center-left worldview would lead me to the opposite conclusionâbut on past performance. I think that if government at all levels focused solely on access, funding, and research, that would be great. Letâs leave improvement to people who actually know what improvement is and who arenât afraid to do it. Or letâs just leave education alone for a little while. Letâs ponder Mr. Finnâs thesis and see that if doesnât inspire us to come up with something new and truly improved. I think this 4th of July, Iâll be flying a libertarian educatorâs flag, one that says âDonât Ed on Me!â