ELA Presentation Deadline

Just a reminder, the Education Law Association
Conference 2006 presentation submission deadline is Monday, Feb. 20.
The conference will be in the Bahamas this year, so provide yourself
plenty of time to hang out on the beach.

New Harvard Civil Rights Project Report ... and Responses

Gail L. Sunderman, a researcher at the Harvard Civil
Rights Project, has released a
new report from her continuing study of how NCLB is influencing change.
This study particularly looks at how federal and state negotiations are
changing the law. There are a couple interesting things about this study.



First, the issue that is getting the most play around the eduniverse is how the
negotiated NCLB is benefiting white middle-class students over minority and
poorer students. (See the CNN article here.)



While who is benefited most by the law is an interesting issue, the Edjurist is
most interested in the issue of negotiated policy between the federal
government and the states. This negotiation is happening more and more between
the states and the federal government, in some cases, to the extent that the
final result is often totally different from what the federal law and
regulations demand.



As the report suggests, NCLB is a monumental failure as a law. First, most laws
are passed, or at least should be passed, with major input from all players.
While NCLB was passed with bipartisan majorities, much of education itself was
not at the table. Thus, many of the current problems with implementation were
not predicted and accounted for initially at passage. This is not where the
law's failures end, however. Even when implementation problems crop up, they
can be accounted for by an active Congress or Department. Amendments can be
passed and regulations rewritten.  This has not occurred with NCLB, and
what has resulted is national unrest and negotiated settlements to keep states
from throwing away the federal dollars altogether. 



This is an untenable situation. While the state response should not be
criticized too harshly because of their primary role as providers of education
in this country, the federal role should be examined. If federal statutes are
going to be written as broad, unachievable mandates then absolutely this
negotiated, untenable situation will continue. Why can't the federal government
still control broad general goals by controlling the purse strings? Is the
mandate necessary at all? Just direct the massive federal allotment toward
research and programs that support the general goals. Granted, there will still
be unrest, but this perverse situation where the law is negotiated between the
state and federal government would be eliminated.



Here is an excerpt that is on point:

What is a law? A political scientist or lawyer could
spend a semester discussing


that question but a rough definition might be
something like this: a rule of general


application established by and enforced by
governmental power. A lawful policy is one


that operates within the principles established by the
law. Is NCLB being administered in


a lawful manner? One vital part of enforcing a law is
that it is intelligible and


predictable. In other words, those subject to
enforcement that is backed by public


sanctions need to know what the law requires, that the
requirements are consistent with


the law itself, that they have reliable information
about what they must or must not do,


and what the consequences may be.





By this standard, some of the most important policies currently being enforced


under NCLB are not lawful. They are not rules of
general application and they are not


consistent from state to state. Sometimes even
individual districts have been allowed to


ignore the policy requirements. Exceptions available
in some places are not publicized or


made available in others. There is no certainty in the
law and no way to know what it


will be in the future. This means that the policy is
essentially a product of negotiation, of


power and discretion, not law.





Since NCLB concentrates serious power and sanctions around demands that


turned out to be unattainable and, sometimes,
irrational, school officials and the public


face the contradiction between explicit and very harsh
policies and a patchwork of


policies that have been compromised in an inconsistent
and unpredictable pattern. These


compromises constitute the real policy, and, since
they are applied differently to different


regions of the country, there is no single, national
policy.

Expect More at ExpectMore?

The Department of Education's blog provided a link to the Office of Management and Budget's expectmore.gov. Ideally this site is supposed to provide federal taxpayers easy to understand assessments of federal program effectiveness.



Clicking through, I was not very impressed and a little uncomfortable.
Many of the education programs were not provided a rating at all. Where
a rating was provided, there was not an adequate explaination of why
the rating was either good or bad. Apparently, it is based on a 25 question survey.
The questions are relevant but not sufficient. Most of the questions
focus on whether the program self-evaluates and whether those
evaluations are tied to manager accountability. The problem is, of
course, important policy decisions will be made based on this
inadequate assessment. How can one compare NASA's Mars Program, the
National Park's glacier preservation, Agriculture's rural housing, and
Ed's vocational education with merely 25 questions? This is a clear
example of effeciency outstripping intelligence.



Here is a couple of examples. NCES was rated as "effective." Perkins Grants and Vocational Education were rated as  "ineffective." See if you feel comfortable with these classifications.



Perhaps we should be expecting a little more from expectmore.gov.

Podcasts

I stumbled across this tech podcast that is worth listing on the podcast list. (Wait, what...you do not know what a podcast is...check here for Wikipedia's definition - don't know what Wikipedia is, click here). Anyway, start with the Larry Sanger interviews to get the flavor.



There are not a lot of education podcasts out there yet, see the link here
for a semi-complete current list. There are certainly not any out there
on education policy. Law is somewhat further along the technology line,
check out their list here (for instance Georgetown podcasts the speeches that are given at the law school).



A great way to get started in podcasting, is to download Apple's iTunes
(which may already be on your computer if you have downloaded Quicktime
- they package them of course) and check out the podcast directory.
There are a couple of padcasts I listen to everyday, such as the NY
Times Front page and Washington report, NPR's topical reports, The
Onion's fake news (for a laugh), and Jim Lehrer's stories and
interviews from the night before. Also available are the President's
weekely radio address and Barak Obama's weekly podcast. Have fun
checking these out and know you are at the edge of the technological
frontier.

More on Higher Ed. Standardized Testing

Can you feel it? The rumbling under your feet? Yes, it is true. The
vast mechanisms of the higher education policy apparatus are starting
to move on the threat of standardized testing. Claudio Sanchez this
morning on NPR ran a story on the action that is worth your time.



David Warren, from the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (a group of private colleges), rejects the notion, but invoked the market as the accountability mechanism. Scary,
but also not a bad argument. It would mean that conservatives, such as
the present administration and Department of Education, would have to
reject their traditional notions on market regulation in favor of a
more hands on, pro-big government policy. To get a sufficient number of
conservatives to sign on to such legislation authorizing standardized
testing would be a stretch. The administration would be forced to cross
the aisle and negotiate a compromise plan with the Democrats, which
again is an unlikely occurrence.



Ah, the wheels are beginning to spin and we here at Edjurist are
certainly excited to see where they take us (although we have the
sneaking suspicion we will end up not too far from where we are right
now).

Great Policy Debate Forming on NCLB Tutoring

A new debate is forming in response to a NY Times Sunday front page story about the under usage of NCLB's tutoring provisions. For analysis see Rotherham and Russo.



The Edjurist would just like to applaud the efforts of the NY Times for
bringing this issue to the fore. Whether or not it is a good policy (of
course there is not enough actual dollars, let alone federal dollars,
to fund this program), it is contained in the law and students, by
right, should be entitled to these services. Double kudos to the Times
for putting this issue on the front page, where it might actually
garner some attention and generate a policy debate about the merits of private tutoring (which is what we really need).

Higher Education Standardized Testing???

A recent New York Times article reported on the activities of Secretary Spelling's Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
According to the article, the Commission is seriously considering
introducing some form of standardized testing to higher education. Here
is an excerpt:

In an interview, Mr. Miller [Charles Miller - a businessman
and the Chairman of the Commission] said he was not envisioning a
higher
education version of the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires
standardizing testing in public schools and penalizes schools whose
students do not improve. "There is no way you can mandate a single set
of tests, to have a federalist higher education system," he said.

But
he said public reporting of collegiate learning as measured through
testing "would be greatly beneficial to the students, parents,
taxpayers and employers" and that he would like to create a national
database that includes measures of learning. "It would be a shame for
the academy to say, 'We can't tell you what it is; you have to trust
us,' " Mr. Miller said.

Higher education is no stranger to standardized testing, with almost
every university requiring some form of standardized test to gain
entry. However, once students gain admission it is very rare for a
student to be subjected to a standardized test.



More than anything else, this represents a loss of trust in the
academy. Higher education must do a better job of presenting itself to
the general public as a practical and reliable institution for training
our next generations. This should ring as loud as a smoke alarm to our
nations universities: either regain our nations trust or face the same
fate as our K-12 schools.



For more analysis see Andy Rotherham's blog here.

Evolution Remains on the Hot Seat

A recent NY Times article has highlighted a bill
in Utah that would require science teachers to add the disclaimer "not
all scientists agree on the origins of life" to lessons about
evolution. The bill has passed the Utah Senate and is moving toward the
House. The article also highlights some of the other states that are
considering evolution instruction policies. For views on either side
see (1) The Discovery Institute, and (2) The National Center for Science Education.

Edublog Carnival

A new Edublog Carnival is posted, this week at The Education Wonks.
This weekly event highlights the best of the education related blogs
and posts them all in one site. It is a good place to get started in
edublogging.

Blogs Entering Mainstream

New evidence of the rise of the blog. Senator Clinton cited The Education Gadfly
(from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation) in a Senate Education
Subcommittee hearing today on Global Competitiveness. The blog Senator
Clinton referenced, written by Checker Finn and Mike Petrilli, can be
found here. 



In response Secretary Spellings stated, 'Senator, I have not seen that
particular blog, but I disagree with it." Perhaps Secretary Spellings
and her staff at the Department of Ed. should get up to speed a bit.
Being that they cut so many programs in the latest budget, they should
have plenty of time to keep up with the blogs.



Besides the blog reference, the Senate Education Committee Hearing did
not yield much of interest. Secretary Spellings continued to push the
President's Math and Science AP plan, admitting that it will be quite a
challenge to get the necessary AP teachers. The Democrats on the
Committee continued to take their swings at the latest budget, noting
all the programs that will find themselves in the dark.



A video file of the hearing will be available here.     

2007 Presidential Budget Request

The President's budget has been released to the ravages of Congress. There are some interesting implications for education. For starters, there is over 3 billion in cuts
(see the chart below). There are a few programs that will see their
funding increased. First, the math and science instruction the
president called for in the State of the Union will be funded at 380 million. Further, the High School Reform program will see an additional 1.5 billion.

 

While it is far to early in the budget process to run screaming in
terror, the cuts do reflect the administration's outlook on education.
Senator Specter, perhaps, sums it up best ..."it is scandalous."

Edjurist Online

Today marks the first entry by the Edjurists. The edjurists are a
collection of education law specialists having obtained at least some
of their training at Indiana University - Bloomington. This blog will
report on education law and policy related topics. This blog will seek
to be objective and forthright in the information presented. However,
we make no guarentees that positions taken will not generate
disagreement among readers. Please respond when you disagree and
convince us otherwise. If we know nothing else about law and policy, we
know that it is based on the arguments of individuals. This collection
of individuals, the edjurists, will seek to inform those arguments by
providing free information and analysis on present day education
topics. Enjoy.