Donn Harris

ESEA THOUGHTS: The Law of Unintended Consequences

Posted by Donn Harris, Sep 17, 2015 0 comments


Donn Harris

I became aware of the recent flurry of activity around the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) almost accidentally; the acronym ESEA was hardly familiar when I first heard it. I was at a California Arts Council meeting, our discussion in full view of the public, and the tape was rolling for posterity. I had been riffing on the entire NCLB experience as it had affected arts education, especially the past nine years (!!) of non-authorized, non-replaced limbo, when a staff member mentioned optimism about the upcoming Senate vote on the new bill, the Every Child Can Achieve Act. Later it passed by an 81-17 margin and now we await a House vote and most likely a bill on President Obama’s desk this fall.

The relative quiet around this process highlights the almost unreal skill with which the authors of the previous bill, 2001’s No Child Left Behind (note the difference in tone between the authoritative 2001 title and the hopeful 2015 version) , were able to put their concept and its provisions before the educational community and the public. NCLB surged into the national consciousness so quickly it seemed as if it had always been there: its proficiency percentages and timelines for growth looked like a sales chart from a successful manufacturing company; its attention to subgroups addressed the underlying fears of problems hidden in large aggregate statistics; its Program Improvement labels and escalating consequences for failing schools seemed appropriately urgent and not without supports and various choices of remedies. Given that NCLB also had broad bipartisan support, it all sounded promising – at least as written. Yet when things hit the ground, the unintended consequences and ambiguity in legislation of this scope can be nearly comical, if the stakes weren’t so high.

A few days ago a former student of mine, on tour with a Broadway show in North Carolina, e-mailed me as part of a Board on which we both to ask whether public education has improved in the past 20 years. My response:

The standards movement hit in 1994 and that forced people to cover the full subject, not just what they liked to teach. But there were too many standards, teachers were forced to go too fast, and subjects like algebra really suffered as teachers raced ahead before students were ready. Then No Child Left Behind arrived in 2001 and took the standards to a whole new level – testing became like a cult ritual, teachers were forced to get new credentials to prove they had expertise in precise subjects like Economics and Physics, there was public shaming for low test scores, scripted curricula emerged specifying what pages classrooms should be on day by day, and arts classes were eliminated in many cases (time was a bigger problem than money, as remedial classes dominated the school day). Chronically low-performing schools  focused on reading and math to the exclusion of even social studies and science (I'm serious), and finally the failed renewal of NCLB in 2006 was followed by nine years in limbo -- the law faded, and Congress wouldn't re-authorize it nor create a new law. Just this year a first step was taken toward a new law and we have a new, deeper curriculum called The Common Core. Testing has been reduced, we have real stats on how different groups are doing, and the arts are coming back. Charter schools and other innovations have raised the bar, good people still love to go into teaching, and there are nearly 200 arts schools around the country.

So, yes, we have improved, but NCLB was one of the prices we paid -- more attention to educational outcomes was a good thing, but we became rigid and data-crazy and we almost decimated arts education for an entire generation.

The scenarios I described above in many cases were the unintended consequences of a system that put into place both a structural model and a psychological climate that clearly led to where we are today. No one I have spoke with on any side of the debate wanted any of these developments. The idea that social studies and science were minimized in some schools goes counter to the very purpose of NCLB: driving us toward global competitiveness. It seems ludicrous, yet it happened. Now that we’re headed in what seems to be a better direction, let’s take a lesson from the NCLB roll-out back in 2001: keep the language clear, the goals easily recited and the larger message inspirational and accessible. And let’s really think about the unintended consequences of putting any wide-sweeping legislation into action. Will there be a technology glitch that renders data unusable? Are less advantaged schools unable to train teachers in The Common Core? If scores are low, what forces will the remedies unleash? NCLB taught us a lot but we have to know how to apply the lessons.

Using a psychological model that seems to make sense here on a few levels, if NCLB was the stern old-school father demanding success and doling out rewards and punishments, then the ECCA Act (or whatever it is ultimately called) is the millennial parent listening to its children, able to live in a world less codified and measured, who builds consensus and values process as much as product. Let’s hope the child learned from the mistakes of the parent, and can craft a more humane and meaningful system to determine how much real progress our children are making.

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