Lecture 13 POLS 207Outline of Last Lecture:Fiscal and Policy Capacity of the States Part 2I. Government funding for religious schools?A. Constitutional (national and state) issueB. Selective incorporationC. Supreme Court’s 3-fold testD. Political considerationsE. Federal education aid between 1965 and 2001Outline of Current Lecture:Federal Role in Education I. No Child Left BehindA. Increased federal role B. Federally mandated standardized testing for all C. All children “proficient” by 2014D. 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 successo He genuinely cared about educationo 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no consequence for failure of his promise.- Includes “seeds” for future “centralization” in education (Unless NCLB is repealed, which isn’t likely at all) Well under 10% of education expenditures in the country are funded by the Federal government.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 12th grades By 2014 ALL children must be “proficient” (i.e. performing at “grade-level”) 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 ethnicityo 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 allchildren 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