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Book Review
| The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965–2001. By Lawrence J. McAndrews. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. x, 306 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-252-03080-X.)No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005. By Patrick J. McGuinn. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006. xii, 260 pp. Cloth, $40.00, ISBN 0-7006-1442-7. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-7006-1443-5.)
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| The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB) has led a growing number of scholars to reexamine the history of the federal role in American education. How, they ask, did a Republican administration come to oversee such a sweeping expansion of federal power in the nation's schools? |
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In No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965–2005, the political scientist Patrick J. McGuinn casts nclb as the culmination of a series of policy changes that began shortly after the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA, of which nclb is the latest reauthorization). Dealing mostly with the period after the election of George H. W. Bush, McGuinn traces a long, drawn-out contest between two approaches to school reform. The first, favored by Republicans, has emphasized high academic standards and state-level accountability for performance. The second, advocated by Democrats, has stressed a need for more federal aid. For years, neither party could persuade its base to compromise, but in the 1990s, both found their way to what Mc- Guinn calls a "grand bargain": "significantly increased federal funding and flexibility in education in exchange for greater accountability for academic improvement" (p. 144). |
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The strength of McGuinn's book is its examination of evolving public opinion and party politics. By the year 2000, he suggests, partisanship gave way to compromise, and the presidential race became "a race to the center" on most issues, including education (p. 147). Once in office, George W. Bush took a bipartisan approach to school reform. McGuinn attributes that bipartisanship to the constraints of party parity. Like Bill Clinton before him, Bush had to operate in "an era of partisan parity and divided government in which no political philosophy or governing coalition has been dominant" (p. 204). "In such an environment," he adds, "presidents have strong incentives to establish a moderate image by forging bipartisan solutions to high-profile policy issues" (ibid.). |
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McGuinn sees NCLB as "the beginning of a new era of federal education policy," but he warns that the law may not actually improve student performance (p. 196). Sanctions have already been relaxed, waivers have become more common, and states are suing for more aid. "The ultimate impact of nclb," he writes, "will . . . be determined by the extent to which federal policymakers are able to resist these pressures and remain committed to enforcing the law's central mandates" (p. 188). In other words, if public opinion turns against nclb, politicians will, too. |
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McGuinn's analysis, focused on the evolution of a single program (ESEA), gives little attention to other areas in which the federal government has a role, such as racial desegregation, special education, bilingual education, and aid to nonpublic schools. On that account, Lawrence J. McAndrews's treatment is much broader. It also offers a very different thesis. |
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McAndrews identifies a "new national consensus" that emerged in the mid-1960s "in favor of comprehensive federal aid to elementary and secondary public schools, the end of de jure school segregation, and the beginning of incremental nonpublic school assistance," and he argues that, in 2001, "this national consensus remained largely intact" (p. 5). |
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