Lecture 13 POLS 207 Outline of Last Lecture Fiscal and Policy Capacity of the States Part 2 I Government funding for religious schools A Constitutional national and state issue B Selective incorporation C Supreme Court s 3 fold test D Political considerations E Federal education aid between 1965 and 2001 Outline of Current Lecture Federal Role in Education I No Child Left Behind A Increased federal role B Federally mandated standardized testing for all C All children proficient by 2014 D Reduced differences among groups Current Lecture Overview Old but limited federal role Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to ESEA of 1965 Federal Grant and Aid Program Who is eligible to receive ESEA money Different administrations have tried to target money to low income school districts Typical template of federal aid 1965 2001 came to a halt with NCLB States count on 7 8 billion annual federal aid Use of strings for incremental changes Little accountability for education outcomes decision making and consequences remain o What works and what doesn t work What improves educational outcomes What improves the learning experience ESEA doesn t have much accountability o Educational research industry has been around for about 35 years trying to answer the above questions It doesn t have much impact on ESEA though 2001 No Child Left Behind Act See also D M 16 539 42 Bush s signature domestic success o He genuinely cared about education o Widespread partisan support in Congress NCLB pushed by Republican administration but Ted Kennedy led the Democratic support for it Introduces a level of micro managing new to federal education policy esp in K 12 education o National government grew from passive funder to active reformer of public education system Mandates accountability with enforceable standards with consequences for failure o Side note Nixon promised energy independence by 1976 no consequence for failure of his promise Includes seeds for future centralization in education Unless NCLB is repealed which isn t likely at all Well under 10 of education expenditures in the country are funded by the Federal government Core provisions o 28 billion 2011 o Annual testing 3rd through 8th in reading and math Note that standardized testing is not new what s new is that it s being mandated across the board by the Federal government In 2005 06 testing was expanded to 10th 11th and 12 th grades By 2014 ALL children must be proficient i e performing at gradelevel in reading and math No child is to be left behind In addition by 2014 differences among groups should be narrowed to avoid in Bush s words the soft bigotry of expectations These groups could be divided up by Income Race and ethnicity o No innate differences in ability If the distribution of competency is different between races something is interfering with what otherwise might be thought of as the natural distribution of competency In other word low achievers are not incompetent because of their race their incompetency has something to do with some other factor s for example the education system Disability Limited English reducing differences among groups does NOT require that all children perform equally There is no requirement that everyone get the same score just that everyone gets a sufficient score Publish these group scores passing rates As a result school districts can no longer mask these group differences by using overall state district wide averages Hard deadline 2014 ALL children be performing at grade level in reading and math