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Over the past few years, I have noticed in my undergraduates -— and even in a few of my younger graduate students -— a shift away from critical and creative thought and a greater desire for black-and-white answers, for lectures instead of discussion and for assignments that feature short answers rather than sustained argument. There are undoubtedly many reasons for this shift, but one of them is likely the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) educational reforms implemented during the Bush administration.
You can imagine my delight, then, in hearing that President Obama is proposing to move beyond NCLB. You can read Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act at the Department of Education's Web site. While the proposal in itself doesn't strike me as being revolutionary or even slightly inspired, it's worth considering for the political and cultural firestorm it has sparked -— and will continue to fan.
In the introduction to his administration's proposal, Obama writes,
A world-class education is also a moral imperative –- the key to securing a more equal, fair, and just society. We will not remain true to our highest ideals unless we do a far better job of educating each one of our sons and daughters. We will not be able to keep the American promise of equal opportunity if we fail to provide a world-class education to every child.
It's difficult to disagree with such a goal -— or with Obama's call for "great" teachers and principals. What's difficult is, of course, determining what constitutes a "world-class education." Recently in Texas, for example, in an illustration of phenomenal cultural illiteracy and a complete disregard for historical events, school board members revised the curriculum to meet their own very narrow "understanding" of American history and world civilization. Alas, because Texas is such a huge purchaser of social science textbooks, the curriculum that gets adopted there almost inevitably makes its way into texts sold outside of the Lone Star State as well. Small-minded people can make big ripples on the curricular landscape.
Accordingly, Obama's challenge will be to balance a desire of many Americans for a "world-class education" recognized as such by America's partners in cultural and economic exchange and the desire of another group of Americans to educate their children in a way that makes sense to them locally. Take health education, for example. Parents in progressive communities might want to educate their children about the benefits of eating produce from small, organic, family-owned farms, while parents who work for ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, or Monsanto have an economic stake in preserving factory farming and thus might not want their children exposed to evangelism about, say, urban horticulture, slow food and 30-mile diets. In addition to economic repercussions, there are cultural traditions at stake.
The current discussion around standards doesn't take into account these issues -— and it should -— but it does remediate to some extent -— or at least slow -— the havoc being wreaked on classroom learning by No Child Left Behind.
Writing at Politico, Nia-Malika Henderson encapsulates the typical criticism of NCLB and the liabilities Obama sees in the law as it currently exists:
Obama’s proposal would toss out the core of the Bush-era law, which calls for across-the-board proficiency from all students in reading and math by 2014, and instead emphasize revamped assessment tools that link teacher evaluations to student progress, and a goal of having students career and college ready upon graduation.
Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have called the 2014 goal unreasonable and have said that it led to watered-down standards. Instead, his blueprint calls for a new goal of career and college readiness for all graduating high school students by 2020.
While the Obama proposal definitely improves upon NCLB, I don't like the vagueness of "college readiness" and "career readiness." Which colleges? Which careers? I'm not just talking in terms of college ranking, either. Different kinds of colleges -— from second-tier research universities to elite liberal arts colleges to community colleges to colleges based in religious doctrines -— expect different levels and kinds of preparation from students. I have friends who attended colleges that did not expect a particularly high level of critical thinking, for example; the students were expected instead to learn a particular body of knowledge -— and certain majors at some
