Secretary of State Arne Duncan is treated to a puff piece in the New York Times, which does not get around to mentioning the federal governnment’s long track record of failure where education policy is concerned. The logic at work here says that spending=achievement. But hasn’t this approach already been tried?
Should the federal government even be involved with education? This is a question that goes missing from a report that celebrates the disbursement of federal funds to localities and grand designs of administrators in Washington D.C.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s agenda has been subsidized by $100 billion in “emergency education money” that more than doubled his department’s budget, according to The New York Times.
Part of the agenda here includes a $4 billion school-improvement competition that induced participating states to alter their laws so as to reflect Duncan’s policy preferences. The Education Department has also funneled $3.5 billion into schools that have been identified as failures.
The logic of a top down approach is highly questionable in light of the maladies that afflict America’s K-12 system. But this is not a probing, analytical report. In fact, there is very little a public relations department could do improve upon the following few lines:
“Mr. Duncan is a man in a hurry. He has far more money to dole out than any previous secretary of education, and he is using it in ways that extend the federal government’s reach into virtually every area of education, from pre-kindergarten to college.`This is the most assertive secretary of education we’ve ever had,’ said Carl Kaestle, an education historian at Brown University who has studied the federal role in 20th-century American schooling.”
Finally, the report does acknowledge some of the policy objections raised by private industry and other public officials. Private lenders who have objected to the restructuring of the college lending program on the basis of higher costs are said have “howled” at the administration. Meanwhile the budget busters escape similar characterizations.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s distinct policy stance would be particularly applicable here for reasons of balance. But they earn just a one line passing reference that acknowledges he declined to participate in the $4 billion competition so as to sidestep any federal intrusion. The article does include an interview with education secretary.
“We’re not going to stand idly by where you have populations that are being poorly served, where we are in fact perpetuating poverty and social failure,” he said. “Our country can’t afford that.”
Washington should support reform, he added, by helping to set high standards, transform failing schools, reduce dropouts and increase college access.
There is no mystery here as to motivation behind what amounts to an uncritical puff piece.
“This administration’s education vision is a very activist, expansive role for the federal government,” said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, is quoted as saying. “We’re never going to be like France, where the education minister can look at his watch and tell you what every fourth grader is doing. But inevitably, with more federal education initiatives, more federal money, comes more strings, more federal control.”
With distrust of the federal government on the rise, administration officials are in great need of salesmanship and slick marketing. True to form, the Gray Lady is doing its part on behalf of the big government initiatives it has long favored.
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