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Show Hingkley Journal of Politics 2006 federalism. During the Clinton administration, Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich vowed to eliminate the Department of Education in an effort to reduce federal intrusion into what had historically been a state and local responsibility. Ironically, it is the Republican administration of President Bush that has increased federal education funding by 40% since 2001 to an unprecedented level in American history (Will, 2005). Proponents of NCLB assert that models of cooperative federalism focus on which programs work in practice, rather than which level of government has constitutional authority over what policy area. In this context, federal intervention in education was sparked by international relations in the post-World War II world. After the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957, the United States Congress passed the National Defense Education Act that provided expanded funding for program development in science, mathematics and foreign languages (Brinkley, 1995). In the international competition for space exploration, stellar scientific achievement became a national priority. An additional point made by advocates is that the states as the "laboratories of democracy" have not been ignored. NCLB is rooted in a successful state experiment that has been emulated on a federal level. Education reform began in Texas in the 1980s, a decade before George W. Bush was elected governor. John Cole was instrumental in this process as the President of the Texas Federation of Teachers. "During all that time (pre-1980s), no one was keeping score about matters like student achievement. When a school system doesn't keep score on student learning, there's not a lot of pressure for learning to improve" (Cole, 2005). Previously in Texas, districts would routinely ignore low-test scores to avoid public scorn and humiliation. Once statewide tests for each grade level were established, pressure built °n schools to improve, offer competitive salaries and update class resources. Accordingly, student achievement has improved with the greater school accountability. "The test we gave 6th-graders this year was harder than the one we gave Hth-graders back in 1987... we have roughly the same percentage of kids in school, and they're passing tougher tests at higher rates" (Cole, 2005). That final point is disputable, say some critics of the revamped Texas education system. Former Houston Independent School District Superintendent Rod Paige used the "Texas miracle" of school improvement as a stepping-stone to become Secretary of Education and unveil NCLB. Robert Kimball, a former assistant principal in Houston revealed that Houston's reported dropout rate of 1.5% under Paige was actually between 25-50%. Struggling students were encouraged by administrators-whose employment was dependent upon school scores-to not take the test and thus avoid damaging the school. Additionally, more than 3,000 students were not coded as dropouts and their records essentially disappeared (Rather, 2004). Meanwhile a separate Associated Press investigation found that schools nationwide "are deliberately not counting the test scores of nearly 2 million minority students when they report progress by racial groups," including 65,000 Asian students in Texas (Minority Scores Omitted, 2005). Advocates of federal intervention in education argue that an important reason for a federal presence is inequality in spending levels between states and between localities. The purse strings of education are controlled by the state legislatures and school funding battles are always fierce. In 2002, the District of Columbia spent $13,187 per pupil while Utah ranked 51st by spending $4,890 per pupil (Public Pupil Spending, 2002). Some districts receive their funding exclusively from property tax, skewing spending towards wealthier neighborhoods. Hence schools in Long Island, New York spend twice as much money per pupil compared to fellow New York City students residing in the South Bronx (Martinez, 2004). In an attempt to solve this problem at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, the federal government invested heavily in education, seeking to remedy racially-motivated economic inequalities. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (and other laws) extended aid based on the economic needs of schools. Between 1964 and 1967, total federal expenditures for education and technical training increased from $5 billion to $12 billion (Brinkley, 1995). Nevertheless, there are still American students that face archaic and insufficient textbooks, overcrowded classrooms, a drastic shortage of certified instructors, and a crumbling, unsanitary school infrastructure (Kozol, 1992, p. 345). Despite the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, American schools are more segregated now than in the 1960s because of residential segregation. Children usually attend their neighborhood school and if their neighborhood is predominately one race or one socioeconomic demographic, then the school will be proportional. For most low-income families, housing choice and the neighborhood school is out of necessity, not luxury. Student performance is also negatively impacted by lack of resources and low socioeconomic status. Test performances in third grade are correlated to experiences by age 3, meaning poor children are at a disadvantage before they even enter public schools because of their lack of exposure to vocabulary and academic achievement at home (Hart and Risley, 2003). Researchers have also found students in high-poverty schools were held to lower standards than their middle and upper class counterparts. On average, "students with the same knowledge of math earned a 'D' if they attended a low-poverty school but earned an 'A if they attended a high-poverty school" (Wattenburg, Hansel, et al., 2005a). Mental and physical health problems, social and home environment, malnourishment and lack of parental intervention also restrain and inhibit children. Schools suffer the consequences for these domestic and societal matters and thus are 27 |