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Continuity and Change in Federal Policy By Anne C. Lewis Illustration © 1999 by Mario Noche

IF THE education policies of the Bush White House are anything like those of the Bush governorship of Texas, the mantra chanted may well be "Do no harm." Gov. Bush, goaded by court decisions and an active business community, left in place education reforms started years before he assumed office, and the changes he did make generally extended practices that were already in effect.

Because of the Clinton Administration's steady incrementalism in education policy, almost every initiative that candidate George Bush promised has already been started in some form or another. In its final days, the last Congress passed an 18% increase (the largest ever) in new funding to federal education programs. Thus many of the programs initiated during the Clinton years may have a long life. These include new teachers to reduce class sizes in the early grades, an early reading initiative (Bush's efforts in this area are one place where he can claim some credit), an urgent school renovation grant program, an after-school program that has gone from less than $100 million in appropriations to $845 million in only three years, and stronger accountability measures for consistently low-performing Title I schools.

The new Bush Administration must deal with two holdover reauthorizations. The last Congress could not agree on a redo of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), nor did it get very far on redesigning the research structure and agenda at the federal level, leaving reauthorization of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement to the new Congress.

During the campaign, one of the differences that separated President Bush from his Democratic opponent with regard to education was money. Candidate Bush promised to spend much less than Al Gore, but the Republican-dominated Congress, acting after the election, buried this idea by giving education $6.5 billion more than the year before.

Another difference President Bush brings to Washington has to do with accountability. If he carries through on his intention to require greater accountability from schools, he may run smack into a smoldering public resentment about testing. The President's idea is to require testing for accountability every year, as in Texas. His platform would require all states to participate in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (only about 40 do so now) and to administer accountability tests to students in grades 3 through 8.

NAEP now tests at only three levels and administers tests in math and reading, which are used by participating states voluntarily, only every four years. The value of more frequent testing is debatable. John McKernan, the former governor of Maine and chair of the Measuring Success Task Force of the National Education Goals Panel, reported that his group recommends NAEP testing every two years rather than every year. Former Secretary of Education Richard Riley questioned how much new and useful information could be produced by NAEP tests conducted on a two-year cycle. "The argument for more frequent testing is not a statistical one," McKernan acknowledged. "Rather, it is to keep the dialogue on school improvement on the front burner." The question will be whether a Bush Administration proposal to require annual testing in all states would produce enlightened dialogue or heated arguments.

This will be one of many skirmishes facing the new Administration as it tries to find wiggle room for a plausible education agenda of its own. Pundits seeking to outline a significant break from past White House policies focus on President Bush's support of vouchers -- as in his brother Jeb's education plan in Florida. However, with public and judicial opposition to voucher plans becoming increasingly evident, it is doubtful that this issue will become a cornerstone of a Bush Administration's education policy. It seems more likely to appear under the cover of tax policy.

More significant is an underlying issue on which President Bush seems to speak with two minds. On one hand, he draws a much larger role for the federal government with regard to accountability, as noted above. Considering the current mood of Congress and the public for more attention to education, the President will find himself pressured to come up with an even greater federal presence in education policy.

On the other hand, President Bush claims to support greater local control. According to one of his education campaign advisors, Nina Rees of the Heritage Foundation, the President envisions as many as five block grants in the education area that would give maximum flexibility to the states and local districts but would require annual testing for accountability. President Bush also supports greater choice and an accompanying emphasis on relief from local and state regulations. The issue of block grants was one of the barriers that prevented the reauthorization of ESEA, as Republicans and Democrats disagreed over how much trust should be placed in states to monitor and hold schools accountable for efforts to improve student achievement.

The stricter accountability measures adopted in the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA were generally ignored until the final year of the Clinton Administration. Some said that the Clinton Administration wanted to save the U.S. Department of Education from Republican threats to eliminate it. Thus it was prudent to be lenient with the states. Department officials, however, say they realized that the states initially did not have the capacity to monitor educational improvement and to implement strong accountability systems. Leadership capabilities among the states remain uneven.

Moreover, the issue of federal versus state versus local control seems, at least on the surface, to be a technical one: how to reduce regulations and paperwork. Underneath, however, it is a centuries-old debate in American education. The earliest settlers dug into their own pockets to hire tutors or teachers for their children or groups of neighborhood children. As the population grew and moved West, national policies encouraged -- then required -- communities to set aside tax funds for schools for everyone. It was a hard sell, and not until communities were promised local control over their schools did the idea become institutionalized.

Responsibility for the education of other people's children has continued to be an uncomfortable burden for many Americans. Control over the common school has been basic to the formation of our society and to our progress as a nation, but there have always been private schools. We once had schools that were segregated by law (always underfunded). When such de jure segregation ended, white flight left many de facto segregated schools behind. Today, charter schools and vouchers can often become sorting mechanisms. Various studies show that the closer control comes to the local school, the greater the inequity in the distribution of resources.

Such inequities led to a growing role for the federal government in education policy, using tax money to make educational opportunity more equitable across the country. The federal government took on what states or local districts could not or would not do. Unfortunately, over the last 20 years that purpose became diluted, as many politicians from both parties tried to fashion education policies that appealed to the middle class -- or went soft on accountability requirements.

President Bush's education platform during the campaign did not shy away from a greater federal role in promoting school improvement. The unknown quantity is whether his federal policies will promote equity, as he has promised, or lead to inequities, as would the school vouchers he also supports. Doing "no harm" is going to be tricky.

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Last updated 15 February 2001
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