One year ago today, Trump took the oath of office for a second time and set it all in motion. 

Through executive orders, layoffs and canceled contracts, he and McMahon carried out a frontal assault on a federal agency Congress created in 1979, the U.S. Department of Education.

The nation has experienced 鈥渟ome of the most rapid and likely consequential changes in education policy,鈥� since the mid-1960s, when lawmakers passed the Civil Rights Act and the law creating Title I funding for children in poverty, said Jeffrey Henig, a professor emeritus at Teachers College, Columbia University. Under President George W. Bush, the No Child Left Behind Act further deepened Washington鈥檚 involvement in schools.

But those initiatives used the strength of the federal government to expand educational opportunities for poor and minority students, Henig said, while this administration is turning away from a focus on equity.

The gameplan hasn鈥檛 always gone smoothly. On three occasions, McMahon has called back staff she fired. The department has frozen and unfrozen funds for programs like afterschool care and suspended long-running research projects. To those who have lost their jobs or seen their civil rights complaints ignored, it鈥檚 been a . Others who believe in McMahon鈥檚 鈥溾�� to make the department obsolete say the pain is necessary.

鈥淚 realize it has sometimes been messy, but that鈥檚 inevitable when the federal role has been built up by special interests over six decades,鈥� said Jim Blew, an Education Department official during Trump鈥檚 first term and the co-founder of the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute. McMahon, he said, is 鈥渞eversing that history by relinquishing power.鈥�

The agenda is somewhat paradoxical. McMahon Washington bureaucrats should get out of the way so education can be 鈥渃losest to the child.鈥� But the administration has tried to exert more control over districts that resist Trump鈥檚 orders. The Office for Civil Rights has launched multiple investigations, threatened to pull funding from states and districts with gender-inclusive policies and curbed efforts to improve achievement among minority students.

Blue states, teachers unions and advocacy groups have fought back in court. A notes more than 20 active cases over the administration鈥檚 anti-DEI mandates and eight related to dismantling the department. Several more lawsuits challenge canceled grants and contracts.

Trump鈥檚 crackdown on immigration has been one of the more tangible ways the disruption in D.C. has filtered down to local districts. Some children are afraid to come to school or wait for the bus, while high school students have been swept up in immigration raids. 

Interruptions in funding made it hard for states and districts to plan ahead. But some experts say the long-term financial impact of the Trump 2.0 shake-up may be minimal. Superintendents are more concerned about declining enrollment than which federal department is distributing their money, said Marguerite Roza, the director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. 

鈥淭he second grader still goes to school. The teacher is still there. The district budget looks pretty much identical to what it did before,鈥� she said. 

In addition to firing staff, McMahon is moving the department鈥檚 major functions to other agencies. But the transition of career and technical education programs to the Labor Department has not been without complications, and that program represents just a fraction of the $18 billion budget for Title I, making some state leaders wary of what will come this year.

鈥淚f this is some form of experimental policymaking, I know of no parent who wants their child to be used in an experiment,鈥� Eric Davis, chair of the North Carolina State Board of Education, said at a meeting. 鈥淭his self-inflicted disruption runs counter to the many decades in which the Department of Education was instrumental in improving the education and academic achievement of millions of Americans.鈥�

Here are eight areas where the Trump administration has radically recast the federal role in education in its first 12 months:

The rapidly shrinking Education Department

Eliminating the Department of Education has been a goal of Republicans since President Ronald Reagan first took office in 1981.

They鈥檙e closer than ever to reaching it. The agency is now less than it was a year ago as the administration aims to drastically reduce education鈥檚 federal footprint.

In addition to the more than 1,300 jobs she cut in March, McMahon slashed 450 positions during the seven-week government shutdown in the fall. Congress and a federal judge forced her to reinstate them. But the moratorium on those layoffs runs out Jan. 30, and some who were targeted by that action expect she鈥檒l try to terminate them again. 

鈥淲e’ve never seen an administration so actively hostile to career civil servants,鈥� said one current employee who asked to remain anonymous to protect her job. With more than a decade at the agency, she鈥檚 among those who have been reassigned to handle basic tasks. Some with 鈥�20-plus years of professional experience are doing things like scheduling rooms.鈥� 

McMahon and others who back the administration鈥檚 goal of abolishing the agency say those staffers won鈥檛 be missed. But blue states are challenging the layoffs in court, saying the department performs essential functions, from increasing opportunities for disadvantaged students and protecting civil rights to gathering on the state of the nation鈥檚 schools. 

As she continues to transfer jobs to other agencies, McMahon will hear from early next month on plans to move services for American Indian and other Native students to the Department of the Interior. Advocates are battling to keep her from moving oversight of special education as well, but at a meeting in December, McMahon maintained, 鈥淣othing shall remain,鈥� said Jennifer Coco, the interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity, who attended the meeting.

Unless Congress makes those moves stick through legislation, a future administration could reverse them. It鈥檚 also unclear whether attempts to reduce staff and rearrange federal oversight 鈥渨ill pass court muster with the many legal challenges underway,鈥� said Patrick McGuinn, a political science and education professor at Drew University in New Jersey.

The year culminated with an event in a small Iowa town in which McMahon granted the state more flexibility to spend $9 million in federal funds. It鈥檚 a preview of how the administration wants to distribute all federal education funds, 鈥渢hrough no-strings-attached block grants,鈥� said Blew, of the Defense of Freedom Institute.

The department is expected to grant more waivers, and whether Democratic or Republican, most state and local education chiefs are relieved that McMahon wants to reduce paperwork, Blew said. Gustavo Balderas, superintendent of the Beaverton, Oregon, schools, agreed.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think you鈥檙e going to find a superintendent who’s going to say, 鈥楪ive me more reporting,鈥� 鈥� he said. 

But some found the news from Iowa underwhelming.

鈥淎fter all of last year鈥檚 public posturing and back-and-forth, it felt like weak sauce,鈥� said Dale Chu, a consultant who focuses on assessment and accountability. It was a 鈥渟ymbolic win for Iowa,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut the jury鈥檚 out as to whether it ultimately makes a difference on student outcomes.鈥�

鈥� Linda Jacobson

Immigration

While the drama unfolds in Washington, Trump’s immigration enforcement actions have hit closer to home. He rolled back longstanding that kept federal immigration agents off school grounds, making K-12 campuses fair game. And despite the Department of Homeland Security鈥檚 claims that it is not targeting students or schools, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers have been on or near K-12 campuses across the country ever since, arresting and deporting parents and kids 鈥� often at drop-off and pick-up times.

A federal-agent inspired melee at a Minneapolis high school earlier this month 鈥� hours after an ICE agent fatally shot an unarmed motorist nearby 鈥� prompted a two-day districtwide shutdown. Absenteeism has skyrocketed in heavily patrolled areas throughout the country, and many families have chosen to . Others have joined a nationwide resistance movement.

“Since January 2025, the administration has blanketed communities with ICE agents, which 鈥� predictably 鈥� has only brought chaos, cruelty and violence to our schools,鈥� said Alejandra V谩zquez Baur, a fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. 鈥淎nd we anticipate this is just the beginning. This year, education leaders will need to be even more bold to defend their students and the sanctity of the learning environment.”

In some cases, schools and other groups that serve undocumented students have gone underground, scrubbing their locations off their websites and using secure messaging to communicate, fearing any attention from the Trump administration could jeopardize their funding or tax status.

The gutting of the Education Department has left the nation鈥檚 5 million English learners with little oversight 鈥� or as to their . The president, who has espoused an English-only agenda, at one point sought to to support these students.

Undocumented immigrants, banned from Head Start, career and technical education programs and adult education last year, have received a temporary reprieve as related lawsuits are decided. Some states, including Florida and Texas, have rescinded in-state college tuition for those here illegally, keeping education 鈥� the reason so many immigrants cite for coming to America 鈥� out of reach. 

鈥� Jo Napolitano

Students with disabilities 

As the department shrinks, education leaders are especially concerned over how McMahon plans to adhere to the many congressional mandates for oversight of disability services for children in schools.

In December, she told advocates that the Department of Health and Human Services and the Labor Department would most likely be tasked with oversight going forward. That pronouncement means continued uncertainty for schools, said Coco, of the Center for Learner Equity. 

鈥淭here is a sense of fear and chaos in schools,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e already operating on razor-thin margins. What they can neither handle nor sustain is more delays. Or the notion that federal reporting is now getting spread across multiple agencies with multiple streams of paperwork.鈥� 

McMahon said she hoped eventually to let states seek waivers freeing them from guidelines on how funding meant for children with disabilities is to be spent, and how school systems will be held accountable for meeting those children’s needs. Adding to the uncertainty: In October, numerous department staffers with the hard-to-acquire expertise needed to oversee services for students with profound disabilities and particular needs were fired. 

Once the on those mass layoffs lifts at the end of this month, advocates hope they won鈥檛 be terminated again.

鈥淭here is a real disconnect between what鈥檚 mandated in law and what鈥檚 happening,鈥� said Coco. 鈥淧eople are anxious the other shoe is going to drop.鈥� 

鈥� Beth Hawkins

Civil rights

No area of education policy has been upended more by the Trump administration than civil rights. McMahon gutted the office dedicated to resolving discrimination complaints and has focused its remaining resources on fighting antisemitism and restricting transgender students鈥� access to women鈥檚 sports and bathrooms. 

The department has of racism against Black students, advocates say, even as it an investigation into the Green Bay, Wisconsin, school district for allegedly denying tutoring services to a . Meanwhile, the department is tied up in litigation with and that allow trans students to compete on teams and use facilities consistent with their gender identity. 

Conservatives cheered McMahon鈥檚 aggressive posture.

鈥淧arents are overjoyed,鈥� Nicole Neily, president of the advocacy group Defending Education, said on in February, after the Office for Civil Rights launched an investigation into Denver Public Schools for creating . 鈥淔or this to be a priority of the administration, I think, really sets the tone from the top down.鈥�

But others say the move has left victims of discrimination, bullying or sexual assault without a place to turn. 

The department closed seven of 12 regional OCR offices, including Boston鈥檚, which was handling a complaint against a Massachusetts district where a teacher held a involving two Black fifth graders in 2024. 

The district placed the teacher on leave, but 鈥渕ore should have been done for these children, including assemblies to educate all teachers and children on the horrific impact of slavery,鈥� said Marcie Lipsitt, a Michigan-based advocate who filed the complaint. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been radio silence since.鈥�

McMahon brought back more than 250 laid-off OCR employees in December, but some think their job now is closing complaints rather than investigating. Lipsitt said five that she filed on behalf of students with disabilities have been dismissed in the past month. Sandra Hodgin, CEO of Title IX Consulting Group, said when she asked OCR about cases she was working on, she was told ‘We’re no longer looking at those.’ “

McMahon hasn鈥檛 said where she would move OCR if she continues to offload offices to other federal agencies. One calls for the Department of Justice鈥檚 civil rights division to absorb it, but Johnathan Smith, chief of staff and general counsel at the National Center for Youth Law and a former DOJ official, sees ahead.

鈥淭here’s no staff there, either,鈥� he said.

鈥� Linda Jacobson

LGBTQ and DEI issues

Trump鈥檚 policies have affected local school staff as well. His executive orders against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and environmental justice-related work resulted in the elimination of more than $1.5 billion in 鈥渄ivisive鈥� and researching educator effectiveness and retention. In many diverse school systems, the loss of funding meant the immediate shuttering of programs that were graduating large numbers of new educators of color.  

Under the guise of outlawing 鈥済ender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology,鈥� the orders also called for limiting LGBTQ students鈥� rights and eliminating classroom materials referencing slavery, Native American history and sexual harassment and abuse. U.S. law specifically prohibits federal interference in schools鈥� choice of classroom topics and materials.

The Department of Education followed up with guidance saying race-conscious policies or initiatives are considered illegal discrimination. Federal officials did not appeal a court order declaring the letter unlawful.   

With 2026 marking the nation鈥檚 250th anniversary, it鈥檚 likely the administration will become more deliberate about trying to reshape history curricula, said Andre Perry, a senior Brookings fellow. 

鈥淭he first year was about dismantling policy structures,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he second year will be about putting in place things they deem important. [And] schools are going to have to do a lot of these things.鈥�    

The White House also made good last year on Trump鈥檚 campaign promise to curtail the rights of transgender students, issuing an order declaring 鈥渟ex as an immutable binary biological classification.鈥� The administration then demanded that several states stop letting transgender students play sports, and . Last week, OCR launched into 14 school districts, along with three colleges and the state of Hawaii, over those policies.

鈥淭he breadth and scope of what this administration did in just one year was pretty astonishing,鈥� said Naomi Goldberg, executive director of the Movement Advancement Project. 鈥淲hat’s really critical to recognize is how much of it is outside of what agencies typically can do without legislation from Congress, and so much of it violates established case law.鈥�

In 2025, more than 700 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced in states throughout the country 鈥� but just 90 were enacted, according to the organization鈥檚 .

That relatively low legislative success rate may be one reason the groups behind the push appear to be focusing on state-level ballot measures in 2026, said Goldberg. Measures curtailing trans youth access to medical care and sports will potentially go before voters in Colorado, Maine, Missouri and Washington. 

鈥� Beth Hawkins

Head Start

Head Start, the federally funded preschool program, hasn鈥檛 been immune to funding disruptions and the administration鈥檚 anti-DEI agenda. Officials initially a temporary federal funding freeze. The move led to confusion and closures and served as a warning shot: The early education and support program for low-income children and their families would become a target of Trump’s second term.

Over the next 12 months, the administration continued to delay funding, shuttered five regional offices, fired scores of employees and issued a number of rule changes leading to an ongoing lawsuit. Of particular concern: A ban on any practices perceived to be DEI-related and an unprecedented edict barring enrollment to thousands of kids based on their immigration status. During the prolonged government shutdown, roughly 10,000 kids across 22 programs lost access to services.

Causing further alarm was a  鈥� ultimately scrapped 鈥� that zeroed out funding for Head Start.

Providers got some relief through court orders pausing some policies, but they say the program鈥檚 future under Trump remains precarious. The right-wing Project 2025 playbook, by the president, calls for Head Start鈥檚 elimination. Program foes argue that its $12.2 billion budget is bloated, local centers have been caught up in scandal and Head Start does not produce .

Last year was meant to be a 60th anniversary celebration of the War on Poverty-era program, which has reached more than and their families since its inception. Instead, Head Start has weathered the administration鈥檚 鈥渄eath-by-a-thousand-cuts approach,鈥� said Katie Hamm, deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development under former President Joe Biden.

She worries that in the coming year, 鈥渢he attacks on Head Start will continue,鈥� pointing to a number of already-delayed January grants and ramped-up child care fraud investigations in Minnesota and other states. 

鈥� Amanda Geduld

Research

Others are concerned about losing valuable education data and statistics that guide efforts to improve schools. 

In February, with the Department of Government Efficiency鈥檚 help, officials canceled dozens of contracts through the Institute for Education Sciences, effectively shutting down the department鈥檚 primary knowledge-gathering agency. The following month brought the news that nearly 90% of IES鈥檚 workforce had been terminated. 

A year later, plans to restore that research infrastructure are still murky.

The impact on the world of K鈥�12 research was swift, with major federal contractors and dozens of scholars the return of funds and jobs. Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington and frequent recipient of federal research support, said that while he believes the department鈥檚 data collection needed to be brought up to date, the 鈥渢earing down of the institution鈥� had made improvement harder.

“Best-case scenario, this has been incredibly disruptive,鈥� he said. 鈥淓ven if you’re not facing cuts, and your project hasn’t just disappeared, there’s a lot of uncertainty about the future of this work.鈥�

After the barrage of withdrawn funding and reductions in force, Washington issued conflicting messages about the future of IES, with Congress proposing the budget for the organization that the White House requested. Researcher Amber Northern was also to help guide a modernization process, suggesting that the razing may be complete.

Mark Schneider, who led IES during the Biden and first Trump administrations and has become one of the agency鈥檚 most prominent critics, said that while it was easy to void contracts, the true challenge for Trump鈥檚 team would be to design a modern system for K鈥�12 research and development. No plan was yet in evidence, he added.  

“My biggest disappointment is not that DOGE and the department cleaned out the detritus at IES, it鈥檚 that there’s no evidence that they thought enough about how to rebuild,鈥� Schneider remarked. 鈥淭hat, to me, is the loss.鈥�

鈥� Kevin Mahnken

School choice

To the administration, the best judges of school quality are parents. That鈥檚 their chief reason for advancing a bold .  

In July, Trump signed the first national tax credit scholarship program into law, a 鈥溾�� that school choice advocates have long sought. Because it鈥檚 intended to reach students in public schools as well, even prominent Democrats like former Education Secretary Arne Duncan have gotten behind it and urged governors in blue states to participate.

The Educational Choice for Children Act, which kicks in next year, gives taxpayers a $1,700 dollar-for-dollar tax credit when they donate to a nonprofit that awards scholarships. It鈥檚 unlike education savings accounts, which allow parents to use state dollars for tuition or homeschooling expenses. 

But depending on taxpayers to fund the program means scholarship groups will need to recruit multiple donors just to cover private school tuition for one student, said Michael McShane, director of national research at EdChoice, an advocacy organization.

鈥淭hat is a lot of donors and outreach and accounting,鈥� he said. Overall, he gives the administration 鈥渁n incomplete鈥� on its school choice agenda, adding that the Treasury Department鈥檚 upcoming regulations tied to the program 鈥渨ill matter a great deal.鈥�

Choice advocates don鈥檛 want governors to add their own rules, while others want strict accountability on how the funds are spent. Further details of how the program will layer on top of existing private school choice programs will emerge in the coming months. But Norton Rainey, CEO of ACE Scholarships, an organization already operating in multiple states, said the tax credit scholarships will ideally complement state-funded ESAs.

鈥淔or families,鈥� he said, 鈥渢he experience should feel additive rather than confusing.鈥�

If the program primarily serves students already in private schools and opens doors to tutoring and afterschool programs for public school kids, it might not be to public education that some fear. 

鈥淗owever, it is also possible that this program may prompt a portion of public school students to seek enrollment in private schools,鈥� said Kristin Blagg, a researcher at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank. If that鈥檚 the case, she said, states could see 鈥渟ubstantial public school enrollment declines.鈥�

The administration鈥檚 support of private school choice is one way it has aligned itself with Christian conservatives who want religious schools to maintain their admission criteria even if they accept public funds. Many religious schools don鈥檛 accept LGBTQ students, children with disabilities or those from a different faith.

But that鈥檚 not the only way Trump is trying to blur the line between church and state. He supported Oklahoma Catholics in their failed effort to open the nation鈥檚 first religious charter school. The religious right, a key faction of the MAGA movement, has been working to inject the Bible into K-12 public curriculum in several states, and the president announced in September that the Education Department would issue guidance on , which some experts expect to emphasize Christianity.

In mid-May, McMahon supported Trump鈥檚 school choice agenda by announcing an additional $60 million for charters, funds from programs like family engagement centers and educational TV for preschoolers.

She often showcases private and charter schools in her tour stops across the country, like the with a classical model she visited in March.

鈥淪chool choice,鈥� afterwards, 鈥渋s crucial for students and parents to access learning environments that best fit their needs.鈥� 

鈥� Linda Jacobson

But considerably less attention has been paid to the decentralized, bottom-up efforts by well-intentioned policymakers and practitioners at all levels that accomplish the same thing 鈥� gutting our collective knowledge of how well kids are doing in school. These efforts, which include abolishing testing, undermining accountability, watering down grades and struggling to respond rapidly to artificial intelligence, are making it impossible to understand who鈥檚 doing well and who needs support to get back on track. In the long run, it will be harder to run effective education organizations, and children will be worse off for it. 

The latest piece of evidence for this crisis is a from UC San Diego that shows shocking increases in the proportion of students arriving unable to perform anything approaching college mathematics. These are students who have excelled in the K-12 system 鈥� getting the As and Bs in allegedly rigorous courses that are necessary to be admitted to a highly selective university. But placement tests upon arrival at UCSD show the incoming students are far behind, forcing them into remedial courses and making it harder for them to complete their degrees. 

While the report has garnered and shocked many, its results weren鈥檛 surprising to those of us who have followed the trends over the last decade. From the bottom up, in individual schools and districts, universities and state departments of education, every signal of student readiness has been relentlessly hollowed out.

The clearest cause of this trend is the gutting of testing and accountability. In the wake of COVID, universities made standardized tests or banned them altogether. The University of California system these data from applications. As a result, college admissions officers lack important data that convey key information about student readiness, data that are especially valuable at . At the same time, K-12 testing and accountability have been substantially undermined since the passage of the , and many experts (including me) believe this is at least partially to blame for a . 

Without standardized tests, colleges must rely primarily on grades to gauge student readiness. But these cannot provide the same level of information that tests can. It was that grades and course titles were imprecise measures of what children had learned. But the information gleaned from classroom performance has been weakening as runs rampant. Perhaps well intentioned, policies like or requiring teachers to give at least a for any completed assignment have contributed to upward pressure on grades. But more generally, there is the cultural pressure to be kind and lenient to students by offering them unlimited makeups and refusing to hold the line on high expectations. Many factors contribute, but the result is that grades provide less and less useful information, which is a disaster with so few other data points to use. 

Even other elements of the education system that might be useful for understanding student performance are increasingly losing their ability to signal college readiness. Think of admissions essays and the ways they are easily corrupted by artificial intelligence. As a college instructor, my ability to gauge students鈥� writing and reasoning abilities is much weaker now than it was even a couple years ago, and this trend may well accelerate. Students increasingly use AI to write college application essays that are then in part by AI 鈥� an almost laughable situation, if it weren鈥檛 so grim. 

There is potential in this moment, however, to recognize the value of standardized assessments that cannot be undermined by artificial intelligence. Universities should again require prospective students to take a validated standardized test, but in a way that maximizes their benefits and minimizes potential harms. This means states should do things like that all students take college admission tests like the SAT or ACT (and if they are state-mandated, they should also be paid for by the state), while also leveraging free test preparation materials so students can feel ready. Even better would be for states to make sure tests are connected to what students are taught, perhaps building standards-aligned high school assessments that public universities would accept as evidence of readiness. Think of Advanced Placement exams or state end-of-course tests that are standards-aligned. These kinds of policies would make the tests fairer while still providing student-readiness data of high enough quality that universities can make good decisions using them. 

Grades also need to mean something again. This involves rolling back reforms that lower expectations for students. And in the context of AI, it also entails helping teachers figure out how to assess student learning in ways that are trustworthy and valid. Without these kinds of fundamental changes, neither classroom teachers nor universities will be able to make the kinds of decisions that will help ensure student success.

Failure to act in this moment will harm both students and institutions 鈥� and ultimately, all of us. 

That鈥檚 because ESSA is proving to be a weak law. Although it was hailed at the time for its bipartisan nature and 鈥渢he largest devolution of federal control to the states in a quarter-century,鈥� student achievement has fallen dramatically, especially for the lowest-performing youngsters.

Part of the problem is that ESSA doesn鈥檛 have the same muscular elements as its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act. It鈥檚 a pretty damning comparison: NCLB required states to hold districts accountable for their results; it paid close attention to low-performing student subgroups; and it included other improvement efforts like school choice, tutoring and a $1 billion reading program. ESSA has none of those things. This lack of ambition probably helped it win bipartisan support when it passed, and also why it has led to student achievement declines.  

Admittedly, this is an awkward point to be making at the current moment. At the national level, the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to kill the U.S. Department of Education and hand full control of education back to the states. Meanwhile, Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren are responding by the status quo with chants like 鈥淪ave our Schools.鈥�

But history suggests neither deregulation nor blind support for the current federal-state relationship is the right approach. And with state leaders seeking waivers for even less oversight over their use of federal funds, now is the time to start thinking about what a better accountability framework might look like. Here are five places to start:  

1. Trust states, but verify

The Trump administration wants to send even more control back to the states with 鈥渘o-strings-attached formula block grants.鈥� But that seems unwise, given the achievement declines most states have experienced over the last decade (many of which preceded COVID). More importantly, it wouldn’t make sense to offer the same flexibilities to, say, Maine or Oregon, where scores have rapidly over the last decade, as to Mississippi, which has dramatically improved outcomes for kids. Different states deserve different levels of earned autonomy.

Andy Smarick, Kelly Robson and I outlined this approach in a 2015 report we called 鈥�.鈥� We envisioned a set of federal-state compacts where each state established ambitious student performance goals and developed a comprehensive plan for reaching them. In exchange, states would be freed from strict federal rules on how to identify low-performing schools and the specific steps for improvement those schools must take, and the government would monitor the results. The feds could then extend the length of compacts with states that make progress and ask those where performance has stalled to revisit their plans.

ESSA has some elements of this framework. Nominally, states are in charge of writing their own plans and the feds are responsible for oversight. But the states would tell you the feds are too strict on what鈥檚 allowable and what鈥檚 not. More importantly, that process ignores student results, and performance can 鈥� and has 鈥� stalled without any impetus for change.

2. Focus on districts, not schools

Whereas NCLB had both school and district accountability components, ESSA focuses solely on schools. That turned out to be a huge mistake.

The school-level emphasis was fundamentally flawed. After all, district leaders control the budget, adopt the school calendar, negotiate major contracts and determine pay schedules. In other words, district leaders should be blamed if a school doesn鈥檛 have the resources it needs to succeed.

The nation saw this play out during COVID. It wasn鈥檛 teachers or principals who set COVID policies, yet the national education law ignored the district role and instead required states to focus on individual schools.

That made no sense 鈥� and it was borne out in the data. The latest Education Recovery Scorecard found achievement gaps within the same districts stayed about the same during the course of the pandemic. Meanwhile, achievement gaps between districts grew substantially.

Why? Because the districts were making different decisions. As a research team led by Dan Goldhaber , 鈥淚n districts that went remote, achievement growth was lower for all subgroups, but especially for students attending high-poverty schools. In areas that remained in person, there were still modest losses in achievement, but there was no widening of gaps between high and low-poverty schools.鈥�

That is, district decisions over how to handle COVID, not COVID itself, were what caused gaps to grow. Going forward, districts, not schools should be the primary unit of accountability.

3. Hold states and districts accountable for the performance of low-performing students

American society is becoming more diverse, and old categories of race and ethnicity are becoming to neatly measure and define. It鈥檚 not that the U.S. has suddenly become colorblind or that race doesn鈥檛 matter, but policies haven鈥檛 caught up to the fact that people who identify as multiracial are the group in the country. Moreover, there鈥檚 wide in which children are identified as having disabilities.

These categories are also less salient in education than they once were. While there鈥檚 been in the gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving students, who those students are has changed. Yes, the bottom has fallen out for children in traditionally low-performing subgroups, but for native English speakers, students without disabilities and those who do not live in poverty.

As such, policymakers should follow the lead of states like and , which specifically look at how the bottom 25% of students are doing, regardless of their race, ethnicity or disability status. Those kids rely on public schools the most, they鈥檙e struggling right now and it鈥檚 where the policy focus should be going forward.

4. Give parents information

ESSA states to share results with families 鈥渁s soon as is practicable鈥� after standardized tests are administered. But reporting has actually over time. Even with the shift to digital exams, states take longer to process the scores than they did two decades ago.

That鈥檚 inexcusable. States could speed this up on their own, or the feds could step in and define 鈥渁s soon as practicable鈥� to be no more than, say, two weeks after the test. That鈥檚 the standard in the private sector, and there鈥檚 no reason it can鈥檛 be met in public education.

5. Give parents options

Did you know that all students in low-performing public schools once had access to free after-school tutoring? Or that all families in low-performing schools once had the right to transfer to another public school of their choice?

Both these programs existed under NCLB. They had flaws, for sure, and school districts tended to hate them, but they pressured schools to improve, and of families took advantage of them each year. Congress should consider bringing back these other forms of accountability too.

This is far from a comprehensive list of all the things that need to improve with current accountability systems, but it鈥檚 not enough to shout 鈥渓ocal control鈥� or defend the status quo.Policymakers from both sides of the aisle need to reckon with the current state of public education and articulate a vision for the future that matches that reality.

鈥淪tandards-based reform鈥� in the heyday of the education reform movement was a bit like the title of a recent film: Everything Everywhere All at Once. The strategy of setting statewide standards, measuring student performance against those standards, and then holding schools accountable for the results was at the heart of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and dominated education policy for most of the 鈥渓ong NCLB period鈥� from the 1990s into the 2010s. To many observers, standards-based reform was education reform, and so the question about whether standards-based reform worked is equivalent to asking whether education reform worked.

Answering that question is only possible if we define what鈥檚 in and what鈥檚 out: What counts under the umbrella of standards-based reform? Did it succeed as an overall strategy? Were there individual components that were particularly effective?

In this chapter, we will work our way through these and related questions, but readers should beware that the results will not be entirely satisfying. Get ready for a lot of shrugging. We know, for example, that student achievement improved markedly in the late 1990s and early 2000s鈥攖he very time that states were starting to put standards, tests, and 鈥渃onsequential accountability鈥� into place. Some of the gains can be directly attributed to those policies. But the improvement was likely driven by other factors, too, some of which had very little to do with education policy or even schools, such as the plummeting child poverty rate at the time.

On the flip side, when student achievement plateaued and even started to decline in the 2010s, it鈥檚 plausible that the tapering off was related to the softening of school-level accountability, as NCLB lost steam and eventually gave way to the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Common Core State Standards. But hard evidence is scant, and it鈥檚 difficult to know for sure, especially because鈥攁gain鈥攕o much else was going on at the same time. That included the aftermath of the Great Recession (and its budget cuts) as well as the advent of smartphones and social media, which may have depressed student achievement just as they boosted teenage anxiety and depression.

And while we know that standards, testing, and especially accountability drove some of the improvements in student outcomes in the 1990s and 2000s, especially in math, we unfortunately have limited information about exactly what schools did to get those better results. For the most part, the 鈥渂lack box鈥� that is the typical K鈥�12 classroom stayed shut.

Here鈥檚 the good news: despite all these uncertainties, there鈥檚 still much we can learn from the era of standards-based reform鈥攂oth for future efforts to use standards, assessments, and accountability to improve outcomes and for education reform writ large.

A short history of standards-based reform

The NCLB Act locked into place a specific version of standards-based reform, one that incorporated a mishmash of ideas that had been floating around since the 1980s and arguably since the 1960s. Think of it like a dish at a fusion restaurant, reflecting a novel combination of flavors and culinary lineages鈥攏ot always with a satisfying outcome.

One might even say that this version of standards-based reform was incoherent鈥攚hich is ironic, given that coherence was arguably the number-one goal of the original progenitors of the idea. In a series of articles and books in the late 1980s, scholars Jennifer O鈥橠ay and Marshall Smith argued for what they called 鈥渟ystemic reform.鈥� Their key insight was that the multiple layers of governance baked into the US education system as well as myriad conflicting policies emanating from the many cooks in the K鈥�12 kitchen were pulling educators in too many directions. What we needed was to fix the system as a whole, to think comprehensively and coherently and thereby get everyone rowing in the same direction in pursuit of stronger and more equitable student outcomes.

To do so, we needed to get serious about 鈥渁lignment.鈥� We should start with a clear set of desired outcomes, also known as standards, delineating what we expect students to know and be able to do鈥攁t the end of high school but also at key milestones along the way. Those curricular standards would set forth both the content of what kids needed to learn and the level at which they needed to learn it. Regular assessments would help practitioners and policymakers understand whether kids were on track to meet expectations and ready to progress to the next grade level and, ultimately, high school graduation. This approach would allow for the assessment of student performance against common expectations and criteria rather than measuring students against one another (norm-referenced evaluation and rankings) to determine academic achievement. But perhaps most importantly, all the other key pieces of the education apparatus needed to be aligned to the standards as well鈥攅specially teacher preparation, professional development, instructional materials, and funding systems.

O鈥橠ay and Smith didn鈥檛 say much about 鈥渁ccountability鈥� as we would later come to talk about it鈥攃onsequences that would accrue to educators, especially for poor student performance. Instead, their focus was primarily on coherence, alignment, and building 鈥渃apacity鈥� in the system to improve teaching and learning.

Systemic reform was popular with traditional education groups. It spoke to the frustration of classroom teachers as well as principals and superintendents, without directly threatening the political power of key constituencies, especially teachers鈥� unions. They welcomed the additional help envisioned by scholars such as O鈥橠ay and Smith鈥攁nd the additional money.

But this approach was hardly the only school improvement game in town. Other ideas were gaining prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, too, ideas promulgated by governors, economists, political scientists, and business leaders. To oversimplify a bit, they coalesced around the 鈥渞einventing government鈥� frame 鈥� namely that to reform a broken system like K鈥�12 education, leaders needed to embrace a 鈥渢ight-loose鈥� strategy: tight about the results to be accomplished and loose about how people closer to the problem might get there. This was how business titans of the time steered their organizations, especially as the economy was shifting to knowledge work. To get the best results, people on the front lines had to have the autonomy to make decisions and solve problems themselves in real time rather than take orders from the top. They should be rewarded when they improved productivity accordingly. But if they failed to generate the desired results, unpleasantness might be expected to follow. They might even lose their jobs.

This struck a chord among some education scholars as well. As far back as 1966鈥檚 Coleman Report, we knew about the disconnect between education inputs and outcomes. If we wanted better results, it made sense to focus on the latter. Furthermore, many of the reforms embraced in the wake of 1983鈥檚 A Nation at Risk report tried to tweak inputs such as teacher salaries, course requirements, and days in the school year. In an era of stagnant achievement and widening achievement gaps, none of that seemed to be working. It was time, many thought, for something else.

By the early 1990s, the tight-loose frame was a big driver behind the charter schools movement and the notion of 鈥渁ccountability for results鈥� for public schools writ large. Lamar Alexander, who was governor of Tennessee before becoming US secretary of education under George H. W. Bush, was apt to talk about 鈥渁n old-fashioned horse trade鈥�: greater autonomy for schools and educators in return for greater accountability for improved student outcomes. And it wasn鈥檛 just Republican governors who embraced this model; several Democratic ones did, too, especially southern governors such as Jim Hunt (North Carolina), Richard Riley (South Carolina), and Bill Clinton (Arkansas). It helped that the Progressive Policy Institute鈥攁 think tank for the New Dems鈥攕upported this approach enthusiastically.

This version of standards-based reform had some overlap with O鈥橠ay and Smith鈥檚 systemic reform, especially when it came to the centrality of academic standards. But it put greater emphasis on the measurement of achievement against those standards鈥攊n other words, high-stakes testing鈥攁nd especially on accountability measures connected to results. This reflected the thinking of both economists and political scientists, who thought that the right incentives might allow local schools and school systems to break through the political barriers to change. With enough pressure from on high, schools might finally put the needs of kids first rather than follow the lead of adult interest groups, especially unions. They would remove ineffective teachers from the classroom, for example, ditch misguided curricula, and untie the hands of principals. The assumption was that the major barrier to improvement was not incoherence or the lack of capacity per se, but small-p politics and, especially, union politics. Getting the incentives right by tying real accountability to results could take a sledgehammer to the political status quo in communities nationwide.

This made sense to some key actors on the political left as well, especially the Education Trust and other civil rights organizations. They bought into this version of standards-based reform but with an important twist: doing right by kids would be defined primarily as doing right by kids who had been mistreated by the education system. That meant Black, Hispanic, and low-income students especially. These reformers wanted to counterbalance the political power of the unions but also that of affluent parents and other actors who tended to steer resources to the children and families who needed them the least. They wanted to use top-down accountability to redirect money, qualified teachers, and attention to the highest-poverty schools and the most disadvantaged kids.

These various flavors of standards-based reform were all in the mix in the 1990s, with many public discussions in particular about the wisdom of a strategy focused on 鈥渃apacity building鈥� versus one that stressed 鈥渁ccountability for results.鈥� The enactment of NCLB settled the debate; the accountability hawks won. Capacity building would mostly be put on the shelf in favor of a muscular, federally driven effort to hold schools accountable, especially for the achievement of the groups that most concerned civil rights leaders.

Enter No Child Left Behind

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the Bush-era reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was the law of the land for an entire generation of students. The kids who entered kindergarten in the fall of 2002, nine months after then president George W. Bush put his signature on NCLB, were seniors in high school in December 2015 when then president Barack Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (its reauthorized successor).

That鈥檚 not to say that the same policy was set in stone for those thirteen years. For the first half of its life, federal officials implemented it rather faithfully, but the second half came with major policy shifts driven by regulatory actions and what might be termed 鈥渟trategic nonenforcement.鈥� Let鈥檚 take a brief trip down memory lane.

鈥淣CLB-classic鈥濃�攚hich was the 2001 reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act鈥攃entered on the three-legged stool of standards, tests, and accountability. But those three elements were not treated with the same level of prescription. States had complete control over their standards鈥攂oth in terms of the content to be included and in terms of the level of performance that would be considered good enough. Not so when it came to the tests鈥攖hose had to be given annually to students in grades three through eight in reading and in math, plus once in high school, plus three times in science. And the assessments had to meet a variety of technical requirements.

But where 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 designers really got prescriptive was around accountability requirements. They created a measure called adequate yearly progress, which judged schools against statewide targets for performance and decreed that subgroups of students鈥攖he major racial groups plus low-income kids, students with disabilities, and English learners鈥攚ould need to hit those targets as well. If schools failed to achieve any of their goals in a given year, they would face a cascade of sanctions that grew more severe with each unsuccessful year. Students would have the right to attend other public schools in their same district and, eventually, to receive 鈥渟upplemental education services鈥� (i.e., free tutoring) from private providers. Districts were charged with intervening in low-performing schools with ever-increasing intensity.

NCLB had a plethora of other provisions, from mandating that schools hire only 鈥渉ighly qualified teachers鈥� to bringing 鈥渟cientifically based reading instruction鈥� (now called the science of reading) to the nation鈥檚 schools. Some of these other pieces could be considered capacitybuilding efforts. But overwhelmingly, NCLB was about accountability for results. It assumed that with enough pressure, schools and districts would cut through the Gordian knot that was holding them back in order to raise the achievement of students, especially those from marginalized groups. That was the theory. And as we鈥檒l get to in a moment, it partly worked.

But it also soon became clear that many schools and systems didn鈥檛 know what to do in response to the accountability pressure鈥攐r couldn鈥檛 steel themselves to make the requisite changes in long-established practices and structures. Some educators narrowed the curriculum, significantly expanding the time spent on math and reading at the expense of other subjects. Stories filled the nation鈥檚 newspapers about schools teaching to the test, canceling recess, even ignoring lice outbreaks, all because of the accountability pressures of NCLB. In perhaps the most notable education scandal, teachers and principals in the Atlanta Public Schools district were found to have cheated on state-administered tests by providing students with the correct answers to questions and even changing students鈥� answers and modifying test sheets to ensure higher scores.

NCLB Evolves

As with most federal statutes, Congress was supposed to update NCLB after a few years. A reauthorization push in 2007 came close to doing so and would have made the law even tougher, but it fell apart under fierce opposition from teachers鈥� unions and other education advocacy groups. So the law lumbered on even as it became clearer to its strongest supporters, including then education secretary Margaret Spellings, that parts of it were becoming unworkable.

One of the major issues was that an increasing number of schools were failing to meet 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 adequate yearly progress provisions. If tens of thousands of schools were deemed subpar, then the sting and stigma were lost, as was much of the motivation to do something to fix it. In particular, the law鈥檚 focus on achievement rather than progress over time was snaring virtually all high-poverty schools in its trap, given the enduring relationship between test scores and kids鈥� socioeconomic backgrounds. Now that annual tests were in place, and states had, with federal money and support, built more sophisticated data systems, it was technically feasible to measure individual students鈥� progress from one year to the next. Such measures were much fairer to schools whose students arrived several years below grade level. But these growth models weren鈥檛 contemplated back in 2001, so they weren鈥檛 allowed under the law.

Through a series of regulatory actions, Spellings (under George W. Bush) and Arne Duncan (under Obama) allowed states to make critical changes to their implementation of NCLB to address these concerns. They allowed growth models provided the models still expected students to hit 鈥減roficiency鈥� within a few years. They loosened rules around supplemental services so that school districts could provide tutoring themselves rather than outsource it to private providers. The cascade of sanctions was replaced with a menu of intervention options and funded generously through the School Improvement Grants program鈥攁ll meant to encourage 鈥渟chool turnarounds.鈥� An Obama-era waiver program allowed states even greater flexibility to tinker with their accountability targets in return for commitments to embrace other reforms the administration supported.

Meanwhile, states were working to address another key issue with NCLB: its encouragement of low level academic standards and much-too-easy-to-pass tests. Because the law required states to set targets that would result in virtually all students reaching the 鈥減roficient鈥� level by 2014, it incentivized states to set the proficiency bar very low. This, in turn, may have encouraged educators to engage in low-level instruction, with teaching to the test and 鈥渄rill and kill鈥� methods. It also provided parents with misleading information, as states told most parents that their children were 鈥減roficient鈥� in reading and math, even if they were actually several years below grade level and nowhere near on track for college or a decent-paying career. In Tennessee, for example, the state reported that 90 percent of students were 鈥減roficient鈥� in fourth-grade reading in 2009 while the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) had the number at 28 percent. Advocates came to call this the 鈥渉onesty gap.鈥�

Under the leadership of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, states started collaborating on a set of common standards for English language arts and math鈥攚hat would eventually become the Common Core State Standards. The hope was that, by working together and providing political cover to one another, the states would finally set the bar suitably high鈥攁t a level that indicated that high school graduates were truly ready for college or career and that would encourage teachers to aim for higher-level teaching. It would certainly be hard for the effort to result in worse standards than what most states had in place. Multiple reviews of state standards over the years from the American Federation of Teachers, Achieve, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found that they were generally vague, poorly written, and lacking in the type of curricular content that 鈥渟ystemic reformers鈥� had envisioned so many years before.10 It wasn鈥檛 surprising, then, that so many educators reported teaching to the test. The tests became the true standards, and they were perceived to be of low quality too.

The Common Core standards were adopted by more than forty states in 2010 and 2011, changing the very foundation of 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 architecture. No longer were states aiming to get low-achieving students to basic literacy and numeracy; now the goal was to get everyone to college and career readiness. But that shift was largely overlooked at the time, drowned out by a fierce political backlash to the Common Core. It mostly came from the right, as the newly emerging conservative populist movement seized on Obama鈥檚 involvement in encouraging the adoption of the standards (through his Race to the Top [RttT] initiative). Nonetheless, by 2015, more than a dozen states were using new assessments tied to the standards (largely paid for through RttT funds), and even today, most states still use the Common Core standards or close facsimiles.

So did standards-based reform work during the NCLB era?

As mentioned before, judging the success or failure of such a sprawling reform effort is hard to do. Thankfully, scholars Dan Goldhaber and Michael DeArmond of the CALDER Center at the American Institutes for Research offered a wonderful overview of the research literature in a recent report for the US Chamber of Commerce, Looking Back to Look Forward: Quantitative and Qualitative Reviews of the Past 20 Years of K鈥�12 Education Assessment and Accountability Policy. I strongly encourage readers to review their findings; allow me to summarize them here.

First, it鈥檚 clear that student achievement in the United States improved dramatically from the mid to late 1990s until the early 2010s鈥攅specially in math, especially at the elementary and middle school levels, and especially for the most marginalized student groups. Pointing to studies by M. Danish Shakeel, Paul Peterson, Eric Hanushek, Ayesha Hashim, Sean Reardon, and others, Goldhaber and DeArmond conclude that 鈥渢he long-term gains on the NAEP reveal a decades-long narrowing of test score achievement gaps between underserved groups (e.g., students of color, lower achieving students) and more advantaged groups (e.g., White students, higher achieving students).鈥�

My own analysis of NAEP trends from that time period focused on the impressive gains made by the nation鈥檚 low-income, Black, and Hispanic students, especially at the lower levels of achievement. The proportion of Black fourth-graders scoring at the 鈥渂elow basic鈥� level on the NAEP reading exam, for example, dropped from more than two-thirds in 1992 to less than half in 2015. Likewise, the percentage of Hispanic eighth-graders scoring 鈥渂elow basic鈥� in math dropped from two-thirds in 1990 to 40 percent in 2015. Those numbers were still much too high, but the improvement over time was breathtaking.

Nor was it just student achievement. High school graduation rates shot up as well, climbing fifteen points on average from the mid-1990s until today. We saw major improvements in college completion, too, with the percentage of Black and Hispanic young adults with four-year degrees climbing from 15 percent and 9 percent, respectively, in 1995 to 23 percent and 21 percent by 2017. Some analysts have argued that these improvements might reflect a softening of graduation standards, but rigorous studies have found that a significant proportion of the gains were real.

Alas, the progress in test scores stalled in the early to mid-2010s, and achievement even declined in some subjects and grade levels in the late 2010s, before the pandemic wiped out decades of gains. As Goldhaber and DeArmond explain, this has led some analysts to argue that the rise and fall of test-based accountability can explain the rise and fall of student achievement.

That鈥檚 possible, but NAEP鈥檚 design makes it hard to know for sure. What scholars can do is compare states with various policies (and policy implementation timelines) to try to link the adoption of standards-based reform to changes in student achievement. That鈥檚 exactly what a series of studies did in the 2000s, including ones by Martin Carnoy and Susanna Loeb, another by Eric Hanushek and Margaret Raymond, and a seminal paper by Tom Dee and Brian Jacob. The latter compared states that adopted 鈥渃onsequential accountability鈥� in the late 1990s to those that adopted it in the early 2000s, once NCLB mandated them to do so. Dee and Jacob found large impacts of those policies on math achievement (an effect size in the neighborhood of half a year of learning), with even greater effects for the lowest-achieving students as well as Black, Hispanic, and low-income kids. The impacts on reading and science were null.

Another study, by Manyee Wong, Thomas D. Cook, and Peter M. Steiner, used Catholic schools as a control group and found more evidence that accountability policies raised achievement in math in the public schools. Other research, also reviewed by Goldhaber and DeArmond, looked at the impact of NCLB on the so-called bubble kids鈥攖he students who were closest to the proficiency line or the schools most at risk of sanctions. Most studies found the largest gains for such students and schools, for better or worse.

A brand-new study, by Ozkan Eren, David N. Figlio, Naci H. Mocan, and Orgul Ozturk, found that accountability policies had an impact on more than just test scores. 鈥淥ur findings indicate that a school鈥檚 receipt of a lower accountability rating, at the bottom end of the ratings distribution, decreases adult criminal involvement. Accountability pressures also reduce the propensity of students鈥� reliance on social welfare programs in adulthood and these effects persist at least until when individuals reach their early 30s.鈥�

Circumstantial evidence from individual states also points to a big impact from consequential accountability. Massachusetts, which combined standards-based reform with an enormous increase in spending in its 1993 Education Reform Act, saw student achievement skyrocket in the late 1990s and early 2000s鈥攖he much-remarked 鈥淢assachusetts miracle.鈥� Fourth-grade reading scores increased by nineteen points from 1998 through 2007鈥攖he equivalent of about two grade levels. Eighth-grade math scores jumped thirty-one points from 2000 to 2009. With its high-quality academic standards, intensive supports for teachers, lavish funding, and new high school graduation exam for students, the Bay State showed what was possible.

Nor was Massachusetts alone. Other states made significant progress, too, including Texas and North Carolina in the 1990s, Florida in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mississippi in the 2010s, and the District of Columbia throughout the entire reform period.

What we can say, then, is that NCLB-style accountability worked, at least for a while and at least in math. Nationally, it didn鈥檛 make an impact in reading, even though reading achievement was improving during the NCLB era (including in states like Massachusetts and Mississippi). We also aren鈥檛 sure if achievement plateaued in the 2010s because accountability necessarily stopped working or because accountability stopped.

It doesn鈥檛 help that we don鈥檛 have much evidence about the mechanisms that might have driven the gains Dee and Jacob (and others) found. Did schools improve their approach to teaching mathematics? Did they make more time for intensive interventions such as tutoring, especially for their lowest-performing kids? Did they work harder or smarter to support teachers and get their best folks where they were needed most? Why did accountability lead to gains in math but not in reading?

We only have a few studies on how these policies might have changed classroom practice. As mentioned above, it was widely perceived that schools鈥攅specially elementary schools, where the schedule is more flexible鈥攏arrowed the curriculum and spent more time on math and reading and less time on social studies and science. Several teacher surveys showed this to be the case.19 (Perhaps that鈥檚 one reason standards-based reform failed to move the needle on reading achievement, given the growing evidence linking content knowledge in subjects like social studies to improvements in reading comprehension.) The improvement of scores for bubble kids indicates that schools and teachers may have shifted their attention to kids near the proficiency line. And teaching to the test was also thought to be pervasive; some teacher surveys, for example, found that instruction became more teacher centered and focused on basic skills.

Alas, studying policy implementation all the way into the classroom is difficult and expensive. So save from surveying teachers about their practice鈥攚hich is better than nothing but not terribly reliable鈥攏ot much else was done. As a result, when it comes to changes that standards-based reform might have brought to the classroom, we have more questions than answers.

School improvement, school choice and school closure

In 2009, the Obama administration successfully lobbied Congress to allocate $3.5 billion (eventually growing to $7 billion) into the Title I School Improvement Grants program. This sum was directed primarily to the 5 percent of schools in each state with the lowest academic achievement. The federal government instructed districts to select from four intervention options, from replacing the principal to closing the school entirely. Most selected the least onerous option, and perhaps for that reason, a federal evaluation of the effort found no impacts on test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment.

However, as Goldhaber and DeArmond explain, some local and state studies did find positive impacts arising from the SIG initiative. California鈥檚 implementation was particularly well studied by scholars including Thomas Dee, Susanna Loeb, Min Sun, Emily K. Penner, and Katharine O. Strunk.25 Both statewide and in particular cities, the results were generally positive, with improvements in both reading and math. This may be because California required its lowest-performing schools to implement more intensive interventions. It also focused a great deal of money鈥攗p to $1.5 million鈥攐n each school and gave the school lots of help in spending it well.

Though not addressed by Goldhaber and DeArmond, another place to look for lessons on accountability is the school choice movement. In particular, we can compare the relative success of charter schools with private school choice, given that the former operates under a strict accountability regime while the latter, in most states, does not. A growing body of research, including a new study from CREDO at Stanford University, shows charter school students outpacing their traditional public school peers both on test scores and on long-term outcomes such as college completion. That is especially the case for urban charter schools and for Black and Hispanic students.

Private school choice programs, on the other hand, have been markedly less effective in boosting student outcomes, at least as judged by test scores. Recent studies of large-scale voucher programs in Ohio, Indiana, and Louisiana all show voucher recipients trailing their public school peers on test score growth, sometimes quite significantly. To be sure, another set of voucher studies finds positive long-term impacts on measures such as high school graduation and college enrollment. But the negative findings on achievement are still worrying and might reflect the lack of consequential accountability baked into these programs.

In the charter schools sector, authorizers are empowered to close low-performing or financially unsustainable schools, and they do so with regularity. This is real accountability, and the threat of closure very likely contributes to鈥攑erhaps even causes much of鈥攖he charter achievement advantage.

What鈥檚 less clear, once again, are the exact mechanisms. Does the threat of school closure encourage charter schools to improve? Perhaps鈥攁nd a series of studies from the Fordham Institute and others have found that charter schools tend to embrace a variety of practices associated with improved achievement, from higher teacher expectations to greater teacher diversity to firmer policies around student discipline. On the other hand, it鈥檚 surely the case that school closures themselves automatically improve the performance of the charter sector, as the worst schools disappear, shifting the bell curve of achievement to the right. Whatever the reason, it鈥檚 clear that accountability plays a key role in the relative success of charter schools.

Unresolved tensions in standards-based reform

Accountability versus capacity building:

The most fateful decision in the history of standards-based reform might have been the move鈥攃emented by NCLB 鈥� to place accountability at the heart of the strategy while largely neglecting capacity building; in other words, to assume that the only problem was the lack of will rather than skill. As Robert Pondiscio argues in chapter 5 of this series, that decision was particularly critical when it came to the issue of curriculum. Even those of us who believe in the importance of standards understand that they don鈥檛 teach themselves, nor do they provide day-to-day guidance to teachers on how to instruct students in an effective, engaging, evidence-based way.

Yet only in recent years have reformers embraced curriculum as a key lever for school improvement, with foundations and even states investing in building high-quality instructional materials and organizations such as EdReports judging them for alignment with rigorous standards. Imagine how much more progress we might have made had we embarked on these efforts twenty years earlier!

Yet that would have been hard to do, since back then states were just developing their standards, and they differed dramatically from one another even as most were of low quality. Only with the creation of the Common Core State Standards was there an opportunity to build a truly national marketplace for curricular materials, which is exactly what has happened in recent years. As high-quality products like Core Knowledge Language Arts and Eureka Math gain market share, we might be returning to the capacity-building effort we ditched so many decades ago. Perhaps fixing teacher preparation and professional development can come next.

It鈥檚 become clear that states need to show leadership around curriculum and instruction rather than sit back and hope districts make the right decisions on their own. States that have done so over the past twenty-five years鈥攊ncluding, at various times, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Mississippi鈥攈ave seen improvements in achievement (though, of course, correlation does not equal causation).

Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?:

As with so much else about this topic, it鈥檚 hard to know whether there were particular components of standards-based reform that made a bigger difference than others. As explained earlier, seminal studies found that it was 鈥渃onsequential accountability鈥� that led to test score gains in the late 1990s and early 2000s鈥攚hich meant some sort of system to classify schools and some legitimate threat that something might happen to those deemed low-performing. My vague language is intentional. State policies, especially pre-NCLB, varied greatly, and yet scholars still detected an impact on achievement. We can say, then, that the threat of rating schools as poor and potentially taking action was enough to move the needle鈥攁t least when these policies were first introduced.

It鈥檚 likely, though, that when accountability systems were discovered to be mostly bark and no bite鈥攂ecause state officials were loath to follow through and actually shutter schools鈥攖hese impacts faded. That brought us to a new stage, when the federal government spent billions of dollars through the School Improvement Grants program to turn around low-performing schools. This was a helping-hand approach rather than tough love, and as discussed earlier, it mostly didn鈥檛 work.

Nor can we make strong claims about the standards and assessments that are at the heart of standards-based reform. Scholars have failed to detect any difference in achievement in states that had low standards versus high ones or weak tests versus strong ones. As they say, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It鈥檚 hard to believe that the quality of standards and assessments does not matter; rather, it鈥檚 more likely that to drive positive change, demanding expectations and tests must be connected to sophisticated school rating systems; meaningful accountability for results; and capacity-building efforts, like the introduction of high-quality curricular materials, to help students succeed.

The lesson for standards-based reform鈥攁nd many other reforms as well鈥攊s that policymakers can鈥檛 view components as items on an 脿 la carte menu. In order to drive improvements, it鈥檚 all or nothing. Especially in the push for 鈥渟ystemic,鈥� coherent reform, the effort is only as strong as its weakest link. If the question is which is most important (standards, assessments, school ratings, consequences, turnaround efforts, or capacity building, especially around curriculum), the correct answer is 鈥渁ll of the above.鈥�

Common standards versus student variation:

Other key issues that reformers often swept under the rug were (1) the inevitable conflict between the desire to set a single, high standard for achievement and the undeniable reality that kids come into school with widely varying levels of readiness and may need varying amounts of support and time to reach standard; and (2) that schools and school systems in the United States have historically underserved and under-supported students experiencing poverty and students with lower socioeconomic status.

The standards-based reform movement succeeded in promoting the idea that 鈥渁ll students can learn鈥� and that we must reject the 鈥渟oft bigotry of low expectations.鈥� These are powerful and necessary maxims. But they rub up against the lived experience of educators, who must cope with the reality of classrooms of students who can be as many as seven grade levels apart on the first day of school.

Slogans about 鈥渉olding schools accountable for results鈥� elide critical questions over the details. Results for which students? All of them? Including the ones who start the school year way above or way below grade level? The embrace of 鈥済rowth models鈥� in the late NCLB period and under ESSA helped to circle this square. By focusing on progress from one school year to the next, accountability systems could give schools credit for helping all of their students make gains, no matter where they started on the achievement spectrum.

NCLB had an answer to this question, implicit though it may have been: the sharp focus of NCLB was on helping the lowest-achieving students鈥攚ho tended to be Black, Hispanic, or low-income, or students with disabilities, or those still learning English鈥攔each basic standards. And as discussed earlier, this focus worked for a time (again mostly in math) as those were the precise groups whose achievement rose the most during the 1990s and 2000s and who were much more likely to graduate from high school in the 2010s. But did this hyperfocus unintentionally incentivize the success and growth of some students over others? And was getting these students to a baseline level of proficiency setting them up for postsecondary success?

Tests as accountability metrics versus instructional tools:

Another key conflict throughout the standards-based reform era was the role of testing. To put it mildly, 鈥渉igh-stakes tests鈥� were not (and are not) popular鈥攚ith the general public, parents, and especially educators鈥攅ven though 鈥渁ccountability鈥� in education polls quite well.

The pushback to testing has been significant. Some of that stemmed from how schools responded to the tests鈥攁s discussed earlier, by 鈥渢eaching to the test鈥� or narrowing the curriculum. Some of it related to the Obama-era push to tie teacher evaluations to test scores. Some of it focused on the tests themselves. Making kids sit for annual assessments from grades three through eight ate up precious instructional time. But since the results didn鈥檛 come back until months later鈥攅ven until the next school year鈥攖hey weren鈥檛 of much help to educators. They weren鈥檛 鈥渋nstructionally useful.鈥� Thus, most school districts opted to give students additional standardized tests, such as NWEA鈥檚 Measures of Academic Progress, in
order to receive real-time information about how students were doing. One study found students spending as many as twenty-five hours a year sitting for tests.

In recent years, some advocates and assessment providers have called for testing systems that can produce both accountability data and instructionally useful information for educators. That鈥檚 an understandable impulse, but trade-offs are unavoidable. Some approaches would assess students three times a year, for example鈥攕o-called through-year assessments鈥攚hich might increase the testing load and encourage schools to adopt a curriculum closely aligned with the scope and sequence of the tests, for better or worse. Assessments that return results immediately, meanwhile, are by definition not graded by humans, and (so far at least) they can鈥檛 test the same higher-order skills that the better state assessments today can. This might encourage a return to low-level teaching of the skill-and-drill variety.

A key issue going forward is whether states will pursue these more instructionally useful assessment systems or simply acknowledge that we need a variety of tests, some to guide instruction and others to generate accountability data, as unpopular as the latter may be.

Lessons for the future

What can tomorrow鈥檚 policymakers learn from our experience with standards, assessments, and accountability?

• Be clear-eyed about capacity in the system. Some of us wrongly assumed that incentives were the only big problem鈥攖hat once we put pressure on schools to improve, they would figure out how to help their students meet standards. What standards-based reform revealed, however, was how little capacity existed in many schools. Educators didn鈥檛 know how to boost achievement, or they only knew how to do this for some kids in their schools. They didn鈥檛 know what curricula to use. And accountability wasn鈥檛 generally strong enough to overcome the political incentives operating in the system, especially union politics. Reformers can鈥檛 wish realities like these away. Fixing perverse incentives is necessary but not sufficient; capacity building is needed too. And that means states need to take a more muscular role around issues like curriculum and teacher preparation than some of us once imagined.

• Be wary of any reform that is about 鈥渁ll鈥� students (or all schools). Yes, all kids need to learn to read, write, and do math, and virtually all students can reach basic standards. But not all kids need to (or can be) college ready. Reforms that don鈥檛 come to terms with the huge variability in kids鈥� readiness levels, cognitive abilities, and prior achievements will lose popular support and will flounder.

• Don鈥檛 take success for granted! Especially in the wake of the awful COVID-19 pandemic and its disastrous impact on our schools, it鈥檚 hard not to romanticize the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when achievement was skyrocketing. What we wouldn鈥檛 give to have those test score gains back! Yet the education debate at the time wasn鈥檛 full of celebration and confidence, but angst about things not moving quickly enough. What we need to remember is that education happens slowly, year by year, and we need to make sure that policy leaders stay on course over a long period of time. We should fight the urge to look for the 鈥渘ext big thing.鈥� At the current moment, for example, there鈥檚 much enthusiasm about universal education savings accounts as new and exciting, in contrast to charter schools, which feel old and dated to some. Yet based on their strong track record, slowly but surely continuing to expand high-quality charter schools may be the best approach to improving student outcomes and expanding parental options. Policymakers, advocates, and philanthropists need to get better at finishing what we started.

• Scholars need new ways to study policy change all the way to the classroom. Thanks in part to the data produced by standards-based reforms, the field of education research has improved markedly in recent decades. Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are much more common, and every day brings important new findings about interventions and their impact on student outcomes. Yet as this chapter demonstrates, we still struggle to follow policy changes all the way down to the classroom. But that doesn鈥檛 have to be a given. It鈥檚 now technically and financially feasible to put cameras and microphones in classrooms nationwide to collect detailed information about teaching and learning. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence will soon allow us to analyze such data to gain insights about curriculum implementation, effective instructional strategies, grouping practices, student discipline, and much else. The question is whether we will have the political will to make this vision a reality while ensuring safeguards for teacher and student privacy.

The conventional wisdom in some quarters is that standards-based reform in general, and NCLB in particular, didn鈥檛 work. That conventional wisdom is incorrect. These policies deserve some of the credit for the historically large achievement gains of the 1990s and 2000s and the equally impressive improvements in the high school graduation and college completion rates of more recent years.

But this approach to reform will work much better if it is combined with efforts to boost the knowledge, skills, and confidence of educators on the front lines. Providing high-quality instructional materials is arguably the best way to do that, and it鈥檚 an effort that states have finally embarked upon. This is still no panacea; the Gordian knot hasn鈥檛 been sliced through, nor have teachers鈥� unions disappeared, nor have we solved the riddle of how to get fourteen thousand school districts to embrace smart policies and practices. Systemic dysfunction remains. But a recommitment to accountability for results, along with a focus on making classroom instruction more coherent, effective, and equitable, could yield stronger results in the years ahead.

See the full Hoover Institution initiative: . 

On Feb. 9, 2012, then-President Barack Obama invited chief state school officers, governors, superintendents and members of Congress to the East Room of the White House. 

Before the assembled crowd, Obama that he was granting states waivers from the federal No Child Left Behind Act (full disclosure: I worked on this project at the U.S. Department of Education and was in the audience that day). In exchange for a suite of reforms related to standards, assessments and teacher evaluations, states would be freed from NCLB’s most onerous accountability provisions. 

With the stroke of the pen, Obama waved away the notion that all schools needed to make 鈥渁dequate yearly progress鈥� for all students and for individual student groups. Instead of interventions for all children in low-performing schools, states could choose how many schools to identify for improvement and what happened there.

狈颁尝叠鈥檚 accountability pressures had been instrumental in a decade-plus of small but significant gains. That progress was perhaps smaller than policymakers and educators might have preferred, but it was broadly shared. In eighth-grade math, for example, the lowest and highest performers both improved about 8 points  鈥� close to a year鈥檚 worth of progress 鈥� on NAEP, the Nation鈥檚 Report Card, from 2003 to 2013.

Obama’s relaxing of school and district accountability pressures helped set off a decline in student performance across the country. By the time Congress passed, and Obama signed, the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, achievement scores had already begun to fall. 

Not only that, but the declines were uneven. From 2013 to 2019, scores for the lowest-performing 10% of students fell 7 points, versus a gain of 3 points for students at the higher end. The response to COVID-19 would eventually widen the gap even further, but it had been growing well before anyone had ever heard of the coronavirus.

Today, achievement gaps are growing across subjects and all across the country. Overall, 49 of 50 states, the District of Columbia and 17 out of 20 of the large cities that participated in NAEP saw a widening of their achievement gap over the last decade. To help visualize how these disparities are changing within individual states and cities, I worked with Eamonn Fitzmaurice, 麻豆精品鈥檚 art and technology director, to create the interactive tool below. Click to find the results for your state or city. 

NAEP Math Scores

Select a state or city below for detailed information

National AverageAlabamaAlaskaArizonaArkansasCalifornia-Los Angeles, CA-San Diego, CADistrict of ColumbiaColoradoConnecticutDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaDoDEAFloridaGeorgia-Atlanta, GAHawaiiIdahoIllinois-Chicago, ILIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusetts-Boston, MAMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew York-New York City, NYNorth Carolina-Charlotte, NCNorth DakotaOhio-Cleveland, OHOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaRhode IslandSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexas-Houston, TXUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming

Change in 8th grade math scores 2003 - 2013 2013 - 2022 2013 - 2022

• All Students
• Higher Performing Students
• Lower Performing Students

We chose to focus on eighth-grade math for this exercise because early math skills are to long-term life outcomes. However, similar achievement trends are in other grades and subjects as well. For example, the American Enterprise Institute鈥檚 Nat Malkus has  the same growing achievement gaps in reading, history and civics.  

What鈥檚 behind the decline? 

A primary factor is the softening of NCLB. The law may not have been especially popular, but at least part of the gains from that era were to its school and district accountability systems. When researchers evaluated the effects of NCLB, they found the law led to noticeable gains in math, for the lowest-performing students. When schools felt pressure from state accountability systems, they increased their academic standards and boosted achievement in ways that had for students. 

New York City provides an illustrative example of what happens when accountability pressure goes away. Under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city instituted an A-F school rating system in 2007. Research found that the system student achievement, in F-rated schools. But in 2014, the city abandoned that grading system and the previous gains . 

New York City鈥檚 NAEP scores show similar trends. All students made large gains from 2003 to 2013, but the lines diverge after that. While the city鈥檚 higher-performing students continued to improve, the scores of lower performers fell 10 points over the last decade. 

There are plenty of other potential theories explaining these trends beyond accountability, but they don鈥檛 fully align with the timing, scope or magnitude of the declines. In 2019, the Fordham Institute’s Mike Petrilli looked into the 鈥渓ost decade鈥� and suggested it could be due to economic factors, screens and other technology or a shift away from basic skills. Others, including and the Pioneer Institute’s , blamed the shift to the Common Core state standards, which was happening about the same time. 

Economic factors could certainly play a role. Petrilli is right to note that and periods of rising are bad for kids, especially the most disadvantaged ones. Plus, the Great Recession of 2007-09 did set off a wave of austerity in some states. Given what about how education spending boosts student performance, particularly among low-income students, this feels plausible. 

However, the timing isn鈥檛 right. The economic recovery throughout the 2010s and rise in education spending should have augured well for student performance. Yet, the opposite was happening as achievement fell and gaps grew.

The economic argument also doesn鈥檛 explain the scope of the declines. While achievement was falling, 47 of 50 states were their inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending. Washington state, for example, increased its spending by 38% over this time period, but its achievement scores fell more than the national average and its achievement gap widened. It鈥檚 possible the losses would have been worse if not for the new money, but something else had to be driving the decline. 

The same flaws apply to arguments around the Common Core. If disruptions associated with the shift to the Common Core were the cause, the scores should have rebounded over time. But they didn鈥檛. 

It鈥檚 also possible that the Common Core pushed schools to cover different topics in a different order, but that doesn鈥檛 explain why achievement gaps grew even in non-Common Core states such as Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia, or why the same patterns appear in civics and history, which the Common Core did not address. 

What about technology? Screens have become more pervasive at home and in schools, and kids are reading for fun less often than they used to. Psychologist Jean Twenge has 2012 鈥� the first year when more than half of Americans owned a smartphone 鈥� as the beginning of a noticeable decrease in teen mental health. 

That timing lines up with the achievement declines, but it鈥檚 not quite clear why the technology problem would hit children in the U.S. harder than in other places. And yet, achievement gaps in math and science for both fourth and eighth graders faster here in America than in any other country (and they were already quite wide here). We have a unique achievement gap problem.

These trends are sobering, but there is one hopeful lesson here: Holding school systems accountable for their lowest-performing students was working 鈥� until policymakers decided the pressure wasn鈥檛 worth it. It may be time once again to ask schools to focus on the academic achievement of their lowest-performing students. 

I was buzzing through my chest congestion (thanks to Chicago November weather and workaholism), because I鈥檇 come to his office fresh from a visit to what seemed like an exemplary bilingual elementary campus. 

After we sat down 鈥� ostensibly to talk about early education policy 鈥� I mentioned the school鈥檚 stirring atmosphere and vibrant decorations. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just obviously a great school,鈥� I gushed. 

But Regenstein, as a local, knew a little about the school, and had a question: 鈥淗ow鈥檚 their data look? Is that atmosphere showing up in better results for kids?鈥� Whatever its flaws, he said, No Child Left Behind was a response to people walking onto campuses that seemed pretty nice 鈥� even if there wasn鈥檛 a lot of learning going on. And, perhaps predictably, this particular school鈥檚 academic outcomes were dismal. 

The rest of our conversation that day stemmed from that branch 鈥� what constitutes a great school? Can any of those elements be measured? How can the measurements we choose nudge schools into better, fairer behavior that advances student excellence? 

In the intervening decade, Regenstein and I have never really stopped that discussion. Our relationship has been almost entirely built around a progressive exploration of that one big conversation. Over the years, our conversations prompted me to write a few articles exploring how education reform could, well, reform itself and advance a better, more comprehensive theory of action for pursuing educational equity. 

Leave it to Regenstein to write an entire book, , which he published with Rowman & Littlefield this fall. Early in the book, he writes that the goal is to 鈥渟urface some of the hidden assumptions that are built into the current system and the 鈥榠nvisible boxes鈥� that constrain our current thinking.鈥� After years 鈥� decades, really 鈥� of largely-unchanged reform thinking on testing, school choice and teacher policies, Regenstein explores how reformers and their critics might improve their debates and make some substantive progress for kids. 

After reading it, like so many other times since that first Chicago meeting, I chatted with Regenstein recently about the future of American education policy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

麻豆精品: First, I want to clarify terms. This is a book about updating and refreshing education policy thinking 鈥� can you help us get clear on what you mean by 鈥榚ducation reform?鈥� When did the last wave of reform start, and how did it, uh, happen? 

Eliott Regenstein: I use 鈥榚d reform鈥� to mean pushing for things to be different and better. So I think of K鈥�12 reformers not as a category of people opposed to some other set of people in the education space, but as people engaged in an ongoing process of trying to learn and get better and do things that are going to help children in ways that we’re not currently doing. 

Sure 鈥� that鈥檚 sort of the dictionary definition version of 鈥榬eform,鈥� but there is a real thing right now called 鈥榚ducation reform鈥� that has existed in a coherent sense, and that the book is at least in part a refinement of that intellectual tradition. And I’m curious about where you clock the history on that? Where is that reform from? Why was ed reform? What was ed reform?

Sure. That wave of reform really defined my early career. It was an interesting product of a number of centrist Democrats and centrist Republicans who had similar ideas about the role of the state, and the importance of student achievement. 

For a couple of decades, that consensus held against the extremes, and there were some good reasons that it did. One of them is that education is an issue that doesn’t neatly track with the political parties. It’s just not that big a deal at the federal level. Almost no one in the federal government is there primarily because of education 鈥� outside of the Department of Education itself. That made it easier to forge consensus.

Also, in that era, the politics of state government, while ideological, were less nationalized than they are now right, with governors who were really trying to govern. Sometimes that would require, would permit, them to bring together leaders from multiple sectors, like the business community, the teachers unions, school management officials and such. Then they鈥檇 really try to come up with policies that reflected the consensus best thinking and a recognition that schools could do better.

During that period (roughly the late 1990s through the mid-2010s), I came to see the reform movement both as extremely powerful and thoughtful, but also as having some very real blind spots. 

And those blind spots have 鈥� to mix metaphors, I guess 鈥� taken a lot of the steam out of that movement, no? Reformers have run into real opposition from a lot of folks in education. 

Well, it’s worth saying that me coming from Illinois matters here. The Illinois Education Association has a history of collaborative engagement and working with the reform community and saying, 鈥楲ook, you have identified real problems and we want to be at the table crafting real solutions.鈥�

A good friend from the IEA who really shaped my thinking in this book told me early on, 鈥楲ook, all these reformers write books with interesting ideas. But then, at some point, they blame all the problems on the teachers unions, and that means I can’t share it with my friends.鈥� 

So I wanted to write a book that is clearly not teachers union orthodoxy, but that a union leader could read and say, 鈥極K, I don’t agree with all of this, but it’s not attacking me, and I can engage with these ideas.鈥� 

I don’t see reformers and teachers unions as being on opposite sides. I see them both working toward improved outcomes for kids, and sharing some values, whatever their disagreements. So I hoped to identify some places where they might have common values that could lead to common change efforts in ways that they themselves have not yet articulated.

It is really hard to engage in reform, even when the teachers involved desperately want it to succeed. Hoping to succeed at reform when the teachers involved don’t want it to succeed is pure folly, a recipe for failure.

How did you pick the three themes for the book? I鈥檓 on record arguing that reformers have long been too narrow. We know more or less what reformers want to do on testing, school choice and school accountability. But there鈥檚 not been anything like a reform consensus on, say, bilingual education, school integration, pre-K, housing policy, most pedagogical questions and more. I think my argument 鈥� reformers should be broader 鈥� is in tension with your push to get them to rethink accountability, teacher pay and school choice, no?

Well, first, I am not a curriculum and instruction expert, nor am I an expert on how to develop community schools. Those are incredibly important things, and there are a lot of good books about them. But I wanted to focus as a policy writer on topics where I felt like policy was driving the wrong behaviors, and where changes in policy could lead to better behavior. So my argument is not that these topics [accountability, teacher pay and school choice] are the only important topics. They’re not. My argument is that these are important topics where policy can make a difference, and that’s why I focused on those three areas.

Right. They鈥檙e structures that are amenable to policy changes 鈥� and that changes in those areas can shift responsibility, agency, and (hopefully?) behavior. But how do you balance the real goal of changing structures and incentives to nudge educators and schools to work more equitably against the real need to give educators, local and state leaders, etc enough flexibility that they can actually feel ownership over their choices 鈥� and authentically lead?

The thing about both the federal government and states and communities is that you are constantly balancing trust and distrust. This is a big theme of the book, and in the aggregate you have to trust states to do certain things, knowing that some of them will do things that you do not like, but that in fact represent the will of the voters in those states, and the reality is that on some of these issues there is no clear right or wrong, moral or immoral answer; and that, allowing states the flexibility to try some different things might actually teach us something.

What鈥檚 the future of testing and accountability? Do they have a future? Can they still serve to push schools towards fairness?

A lot of it boils down to the question of what makes a great school, and that’s a question that I try to attack frontally. Historically, we鈥檝e focused on schools where kids came from wealthy families who would likely have been successful, regardless of how good the teachers were. And yet, some of the best work by teachers is being done in low-income communities with students who need a lot of help: Our measurement of school quality 鈥� measuring academic proficiency on tests 鈥� was just obscuring it. So I really want us to get to a more honest appraisal of which schools are doing well and encouraging more to do well.

You used early childhood education as a foil in the book. What are some of the key things K鈥�12 policymakers and educators can learn from early ed?

There is a lot that’s different about early childhood than K鈥�12. And in some ways, those of us who work on early childhood policy benefit from the experience of working in an unbuilt system. In early childhood some relatively basic building blocks don’t exist, and the idea of designing them is in many ways much easier than taking a built K鈥�12 infrastructure and reshaping it after years and years of calcification. 

For example: in early childhood, children are not obligated to show up, and schools are not generally obligated to take them. And anywhere other than D.C., there probably wouldn鈥檛 be enough spots to take all the kids who might show up. Those are a fundamentally different set of starting assumptions than K鈥�12, where families are required to send 鈥� and the schools are obligated to take 鈥� everybody.

That shapes parental choice in meaningful ways. In early education, there’s a recognition that parents need support in making choices about where to send their child, especially because the options are so varied. They don’t always get all the help they need, but that navigational function is seen as a core value. 

It’s also the case that it is a world without standardized test results, so if you are going to measure quality, it’s going to have to focus on process more than results, because the science of getting standardized results about 3- and 4-year-old children just looks really different than it does for high school kids. That makes it intuitive for early educators to focus on things like social and emotional learning, for instance. 

That’s not to say that K鈥�12 is wrong to do the things it does. But I’m trying to think about gleaning the best of both worlds, where we draw some of the lessons from early childhood to influence the built system of K鈥�12 while simultaneously building an early childhood system that maintains the best values of early childhood and helps import them into that K鈥�12 system.

I particularly appreciated your treatment of standardized testing. Tests get blamed a lot for choices that schools and teachers make, even when those are actually ineffective choices like test prep. But those bad choices aren鈥檛 the tests鈥� fault 鈥� ! 

Standardized testing ended up in the reform deal because there was a belief in many quarters that there were certain kids, particularly low-income kids and kids of color, who, if you weren鈥檛 watching their outcomes, would just sort of drift aimlessly away, and that the system would say those kids are doing fine when they were not. That value attached to standardized tests is a real one.

But it is also the case that having standardized testing count for so much in the evaluation of schools has led to a whole set of completely understandable behaviors on the part of those schools that are not actually good for a kid鈥檚 education. You don’t see that as much with kids from wealthy families, who are going to pass the test regardless, but you do see it in places where there are lots of kids who are close but need some help to pass the test. 

Often those schools think, 鈥極h, if we focus on this test, we can get them across the line,鈥� and sometimes they use good pedagogy to do it, and sometimes they don’t. That鈥檚 a capacity problem that policymakers are ill suited to solving. 

So if you get rid of standardized tests, there is a very real risk that a certain population of kids are going to be very badly served, and if you make standardized tests the end-all and be-all, you’re going to get some of the bad behaviors that we’ve seen in the last couple of decades.

That problem is real, that tension between tests鈥� value and their distorting effect is real. Essentially, my argument is: Look, you can’t get rid of that tension, but you can build around it and create counterweights and other things that are valued. 

While they鈥檙e waiting for their copies of the book to arrive, what can folks do to usher in a brighter, more constructive version of education reform? 

Honestly, one of my dreams for this book was that people would read it and write articles disagreeing with it, and that I would then email those people politely, and then I would have a conversation with them, and that we would both learn something. I mean, I do that to people 鈥�

Can confirm. You鈥檝e sent me those notes. 

I mean, it  would be a thrill right if someone wrote me: 鈥淗ere’s where I disagree with Education Restated. 

But look, part of why I wrote this book was for reformers to read it and think, 鈥極K, I recognize this. This speaks to me and my values and orientation. But I learned something. I see things differently now.鈥� 

Even if folks aren鈥檛 entirely persuaded by my specific arguments, hopefully they come away open minded about topics that they thought they had a settled position on. The goal is to move people out of their trenches and into a conversation about what is possible. If anybody reads this and has that experience, I will consider that a success. 

The book does have that vibe. It feels like a chance to rethink reform without abandoning it.

Well, my experience has been that it is extremely rare to change people’s minds about what they want. What you can change people’s minds about is how they’re going to act on what they want. And that part of what this book is meant to do is say to both reformers and reform skeptics, 鈥楲ook, you’re gonna want what you want, but given what you want, maybe there are different policies you could adopt that would help you achieve what you want and make common cause with people who you haven’t always thought of as your people.鈥�

The school choice advocate and Republican mega-donor has kept a relatively low profile since leaving Washington last January, mostly attending to policy developments in her home state of Michigan. Her call to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, unveiled at , represented a return to the national spotlight 鈥� not just for DeVos, but for an idea that has hung around Republican politics for decades. 

Even more remarkably, DeVos鈥檚 sentiments were echoed a few weeks later by her former boss. Denouncing what he described as the politicized teaching of subjects like race and sexuality before a joyful crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, that if the federal government promoted 鈥渞adicalism鈥� in academic instruction, 鈥渨e should abolish the Department of Education.鈥�

Conservatives have sought to scrap the department, and dramatically reduce Washington鈥檚 K-12 footprint, since it was created in 1979. Those efforts, including that would take effect by the end of this year, have generally been seen as quixotic; even when they held unified control over Congress and the White House, Trump and DeVos floated, but never came close to pursuing, the Departments of Education and Labor.

The political fallout of that kind of reshuffle would be hard to predict, but potentially severe. According to , over half of Americans view the Department of Education favorably. The department collects and disseminates scientific evidence on schooling through the Institute of Education Sciences, plays a public watchdog role through its Office of Civil Rights, and helps equalize school funding with the tens of billions of dollars provided by Title I. All of these purposes are served with of any cabinet department. 

But while policy experts consider outright abolition a farfetched notion, they say it reflects a long-running contest between dueling urges in American education: a strong distrust of federal influence on one hand, and on the other, profound dissatisfaction with the status quo. During the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the second impulse was dominant, with massive new federal initiatives launched around school performance and accountability. But resistance to federal authority has been growing for a decade, and the renewed energy around abolition is breaking through just as the disgust of Republican voters 鈥� with perceived indoctrination in classrooms, federal recommendations on COVID safety, and much else 鈥� has crested. 

Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute who studies public administration, said that the government鈥檚 response to COVID had engendered 鈥渁 clear backlash鈥� among Republicans. Even as pandemic health measures were largely decided at the state level, he added, Washington鈥檚 guidelines on masking and vaccines in schools have fueled the party鈥檚 enmity toward federal interventions in education.

鈥淭he Right certainly doesn’t trust the federal government to lead some sort of learning recovery response,鈥� Kosar said. 鈥淭hey would much rather pull the power back to local communities and have the feds stay as far away as possible.鈥�

Jack Jennings, a retired policy maven who served as the Democrats鈥� top education aide in the House of Representatives, argued that shrinking the public sector is never as easy as it sounds. But he added that abolition is electorally potent with the Republican base before the 2022 midterm elections, likening it to a 鈥渞ed flag in front of a bull.鈥� 

鈥淚t’s not an issue that’s going to come to fruition soon, but it鈥檚 one of those things that rattles the cages of conservatives,” Jennings said.

Unions divided

The department has always had its share of detractors. At its inception, that group even included many Democrats.

By the late 1970s, the federal government鈥檚 responsibilities over education 鈥� codified in landmark laws like the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 鈥� were housed in the then-Department of Healthcare, Education, and Welfare. President Jimmy Carter鈥檚 insistence on carving out an entity devoted specifically to K-12 was borne of , the nation鈥檚 largest teachers鈥� union, which had helped Carter secure the Democratic nomination in 1976. Until that election, the NEA had never issued a presidential endorsement.

But according to Jennings, many in the president鈥檚 own party were leery of the idea. Even fervent liberals worried that a dedicated agency would induce untold 鈥渕eddling鈥� in the affairs of schools and districts. Albert Shanker, the influential president of the American Federation of Teachers, lobbied against the change out of concern that his own union would be put at a disadvantage.

“[Carter] was fulfilling a campaign promise by sending it to the Congress,鈥� Jennings recalled. 鈥淏ut when the Congress received it, Democrats were not all in favor of it.”

In the end, necessary authorizing legislation passed in the perennially Democratic House . But Democratic resistance faded over time, as the government鈥檚 sizable outlays to educate poor and disabled students gelled easily with the party鈥檚 own priorities. Hostility among Republicans would be a feature of the policy landscape for years to come.

Ronald Reagan the newly created department while still a presidential candidate. That pledge years later, following the national alarm stoked by the release of the administration鈥檚 bombshell report, A Nation at Risk; after declaring a national education emergency in its first term, it would have appeared perverse for the administration to gut the nation鈥檚 foremost education authority in its second.

Still, Reagan later appointed as education secretary the public intellectual William Bennett, whose views were . And the Republican position remained clear for years afterward. Lamar Alexander, a former Tennessee governor who led the department under President George H.W. Bush and later served three terms in the U.S. Senate, his abortive 1996 presidential campaign. for eventual nominee Bob Dole included a promise to eliminate the Department of Education (along with the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development).

David Cleary, a former senior aide to Alexander who now serves as the Republican staff director for the Senate鈥檚 Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said his party鈥檚 enduring skepticism toward federal overreach explained its drive to abolish. Moreover, few of the department鈥檚 functions need to be administered nationally.

鈥淭he U.S. Department of Education doesn’t establish a curriculum 鈥� thank God 鈥� doesn’t establish education standards, doesn’t establish tests, and doesn’t establish criteria for institutions of higher education,鈥� Cleary said. 鈥淪o it really is just a grant-making entity with a huge bureaucracy.鈥�

A short-lived honeymoon

Notwithstanding the Right鈥檚 philosophical objections, however, the last quarter-century has been a time of bipartisan acceptance for the department. The key figure in that detente was George W. Bush.

It was the Texas governor鈥檚 wholesale embrace of education reform 鈥� part of a 鈥渃ompassionate conservative鈥� push that helped Republicans recover from Dole鈥檚 landslide 1996 defeat 鈥� that set the stage for the No Child Left Behind Act. That law, the biggest expansion of the federal government鈥檚 educational powers since the Civil Rights era, was enacted through a generational compromise with Democrats: The Left would get more resources to improve chronically failing schools (which they later complained was short-changed), while the Right would get tighter accountability for academic results (which later trampled on local autonomy, they grumbled).

Both parties returned early from their political honeymoon, with Democrats and teachers鈥� unions against a law they helped shepherd into being. But it was Republicans, disenchanted with the department鈥檚 broader scope over local schools, that migrated further from the vision of a more muscular federal role.

Their distaste only grew as responsibility for implementing NCLB fell to the Obama administration. As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan backed ambitious policy initiatives like Race to the Top and Common Core, Tea Party conservatives 鈥� increasingly in concert with the leadership of both NEA and AFT 鈥� demanded a reversal of the department鈥檚 growing remit. 

Chester Finn, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, compared the public鈥檚 attitude toward education reform to a pendulum that periodically swings toward greater federal involvement.

鈥淏ut then we suddenly discover that that’s too pushy鈥nd it’s embarrassing people, so there’s a backlash,鈥� Finn remarked. 鈥淭hat’s what was beginning to happen in the late Bush and Obama years, and that’s when they started giving waivers and making exceptions so that the pushing wasn’t as hard or as uniform.鈥�

The retreat from 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 strictures in the mid-2010s was not total. The law that supplanted it, 2015鈥檚 Every Student Succeeds Act, left in place some Bush- and Obama-era accountability measures while granting states more freedom to chart their own course. But even the relaxation of regulations couldn鈥檛 shield the department from the dissatisfaction that would follow in the pandemic era.

鈥淚t still felt like there was a truce, fundamentally 鈥� that the federal role in education was legit,鈥� said AEI鈥檚 Kosar. 鈥淭hen we get some of the executive orders in the Obama administration that struck the right as 鈥榳oke.鈥� And now we get schools being an epicenter for debates about how to respond to the coronavirus. That鈥檚 what sparked the most recent revolt against the feds.鈥�

鈥楢nyone pushing this is going to be savaged鈥�

If the intellectual history of abolition is well-documented, its potential as a governing proposal is hazy.

To put it simply, the Department of Education is a well-known entity with countless supportive constituencies. Eliminating its offices and employees would require relocating the trillion-dollar federal student loan program, which plays an integral role in sending millions of students to college. Title I, which dispenses billions to districts and schools that serve children facing academic and socioeconomic challenges, has its own army of defenders in both Congress and the states. Billions more go to special-education students.

鈥淚t’s going to be a heavy lift,鈥� Kosar said. 鈥淓very interest group is going to come out and want to keep its programs alive. And of course, anyone pushing to do this is going to be savaged viciously as anti-education.鈥�

Even if a future Republican administration were to keep the most popular initiatives intact, they would face two significant logistical hurdles. First, relocating those programs in other agencies 鈥� student loans at the Treasury, for instance, or the Office of Civil Rights at the Justice Department 鈥� would almost certainly require a statutory change that Democrats wouldn鈥檛 go along with. So full GOP control of government, plus filibuster-proof majorities, would be a necessity.

If this could be achieved, the federal role, however shrunken, would be scattered in pieces across the executive branch. Without the unified leadership provided by a secretary, their effectiveness could be severely hampered.

Jennings, the former longtime House staffer, said the end result would be a succession of functions 鈥渟pun off into different areas of the federal government. And there would be no coordination among them because they would be answerable to different people.鈥�

Cleary, the Senate HELP Committee aide, conceded that the political obstacles would be significant. But a more limited administrative campaign against the department, entailing the systematic elimination of Democratic regulations and mass block-granting of its various programs, could be achieved under a future Republican administration, he said.

鈥淚f I were the secretary of education, or advising one, I would do a hiring freeze and just not hire new people, and start to burn out the Deep State, if you will,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou don’t really need as many people as they have.鈥�

Finn, a former department hand who openly desires a 鈥渟erious rethinking鈥� of the federal role in education, said that neither wholesale elimination nor reform was likely on any near-term timeframe. Entering an era of greater partisan divides on the Department of Education, he added, Republicans would be forced to offer greater specificity around their signature education promise.   

鈥淭he question’s always the same: Do [conservatives] just want to abolish the building with the name over it that says ‘Department of Education?’ Or do they want to abolish the federal functions that it contains? Because those are such different things.”

While some good has come from 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 core approach 鈥� notably a clearer focus on outputs over inputs, the disaggregation of student results by race and ethnicity, and a revolution in education data 鈥� it is hard to argue that the law has lived up to its promise. Roughly one-third of students graduated ready for college or a career back then, and the same is true today.  Performance on international assessments , while recent trends on the National Assessment of Educational Progress indicate that performance is going in the wrong direction. 

Nor did NCLB put the nation on a path toward any semblance of educational equity, as . Eight percent of Black 12th graders, for example, are now proficient in math 鈥� up from 6 percent  back in 2005. At that rate of progress, it would take another 200 years for their performance to match that of white students, and that would assume white students’ performance stayed the same.  

Now, as schools try to address the profound learning losses caused by the pandemic, the NCLB playbook seems wildly out of touch. Students returned to school this fall in need of real solutions to support their educational and social-emotional recovery following 18 months of profound disruption. But for many schools, the challenges of filling an unprecedented level of staffing vacancies, implementing COVID-19 precautions and managing parent politics have taken all priority. Accountability based on end-of-year grade-level assessments may well be the last thing on their mind. 

Why did NCLB fail to deliver on its promise? Some will fault political opposition, economic conditions or bad implementation as key reasons, and there is some evidence to support each of these claims. However, we believe these explanations belie a larger truth that those who wish to improve our nation鈥檚 system of schooling can no longer ignore:

To modify the James Carville adage: It鈥檚 the model, stupid. 

While NCLB shaped the foundation for the work of those looking to reform education, it left the basic century-old industrial paradigm of how schooling happens intact. Schools function, by and large, with all same-aged students learning the same material at the same time from a single teacher and textbook. 

In the middle of the 19th century, this model was considered the most efficient way of supplying a factory-ready workforce that needed some assimilation and to be able to perform repetitive tasks, follow directions and apply basic numeracy and literacy skills. But from that point forward, nearly every effort at school improvement has been limited by its inherent constraints.

NCLB was only the latest of many well-intended school improvements that could not overcome the limits of the industrial paradigm of schooling. Raising academic standards can signal to teachers what they should expect, but they provide little guidance on what to do when students begin the school year multiple years behind. Good teacher training can make a big difference, but when skilled educators quit because of a fundamentally unsustainable role, it鈥檚 back to square one. Assessments can also be useful, but adjusting instruction to meet each student鈥檚 unique needs is near impossible. School choice can be a godsend for families whose children would otherwise be stuck in a low-performing school, but if the schools that are chosen are operating within the same industrial-era boundaries, differences may not be so stark.

Ironically, 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 focus on trying to optimize a century-old delivery model took effect during the same time that other sectors saw the internet and its related technological advancements as an opportunity to modernize the ways in which they did business. From retail to energy to media to banking, the world of 2021 bears little resemblance to what existed at the dawn of the 21st century. Even churches now livestream on Sunday mornings. 

Many of these shifts were funded by commercial forces looking to leverage modern technologies to capture new segments of the marketplace. When early-stage investment was deemed too risky for private capital, public investments in research and development stepped in to fund breakthroughs such as the internet, GPS and mRNA vaccines.

NCLB did little to stoke any form of R&D investment to modernize the K-12 delivery model. In 2001, the federal government authorized 鈥� dead last among all federal agencies. That expenditure (and still dead last).聽 And since the vast majority of education R&D dollars have gone toward research and not development, in 2020 was actually aimed at building things that schools could actually use. By comparison, in 2020 on R&D, exploring new ways for teens to send digital photos to one another.聽

Why has the industrial paradigm remained steadfast? Perhaps because there isn鈥檛 much effort aimed at creating any viable alternatives to it.

Beyond the lack of R&D, overcoming the limits of the paradigm was made even more difficult by the policies embedded within NCLB itself. Annual accountability for performance on grade-level-aligned exams meant everyone was on the hook for showing higher proficiency on the next year鈥檚 test. In response, many schools decided to hunker down and teach harder. 

But when the pandemic hit, the implications of trying to improve schooling without really changing it were fully laid bare. While the general public was still able to do much of what it could do pre-pandemic 鈥� order groceries, watch movies, pay bills, stay connected to friends 鈥� schooling was reduced to teachers scrambling to bring their industrial-era classrooms online or somehow make them work in a hybrid context. 

Make no mistake about it: It was optimization-only thinking at the heart of NCLB that left them in the lurch.

Parents are now onto all of this as well. Many had a front-row seat to Zoom school and didn鈥檛 like what they saw. A recent survey revealed they in how school happens. On their wish list: relevant and real-world learning, improved technology to better support instruction and greater customization to meet varied learning needs.

While some schools and districts will take bona fide steps to respond to these aspirations, many know that systemically achieving them within the constraints of the industrial paradigm is futile. 

It simply cannot be, in the 21st century, that the best way for students to learn about photosynthesis, parallelograms or the Vietnam War is through the pages of a tedious textbook in the company of 28 same-aged students. Yet, these core elements of an industrial paradigm from a time long past remain an ever-present design constraint that leaves millions of students bored, stressed and unable to access a high-quality education.

Nor does the factory-inspired model seem to work especially well for educators. Before the pandemic, teacher satisfaction had reached its . Now, more than a quarter of educators The pandemic made them , but the burden of reimagining what a classroom can look like cannot fall on their shoulders. 

If our ways of education are not working for students, for teachers or for the nation, how long will we continue down this path without laying the foundation for new ways of schooling? Can we not conceive of more effective ways to educate students that are not viewed through the industrial-era prism?

The architects of NCLB were right: Expectations matter. However, policies that center exclusively on optimization around the existing model of schooling reflect just the opposite 鈥� that the century-old way of doing school is simply the best we can hope for in the 21st century.

It鈥檚 not.   

As policymakers look forward to more recovery investment and to future reauthorizations of the federal education law itself, they would be wise to heed the most important lesson from the last 20 years: 

Our nation cannot force an educational system that leaves no child behind. It must invent one. 

Jenee Henry Wood is head of learning at Transcend, a national nonprofit organization that supports communities to create and spread extraordinary, equitable learning environments. Joel Rose is CEO of New Classrooms Innovation Partners, a national nonprofit organization focused on the development and adoption of innovative approaches to learning that personalize education for each student.

The bill, perhaps the centerpiece of Bush鈥檚 鈥渃ompassionate conservative鈥� agenda, had sprinted through the U.S. House and Senate before hitting the summer quagmire that so often ensnares federal legislation. Administration officials hoped that a presidential swing through Florida might reawaken Washington and speed its way to passage.

It was only minutes before the activities began when Bush learned that a plane had collided with one of the World Trade Center towers. Like many, Brogan initially assumed the reports referred to a light aircraft that had wandered off-course.

But as the room filled with the singsong cadence of kids reading aloud 鈥� the activity, centered on a called The Pet Goat, had been selected to draw attention to 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 literacy provisions 鈥� the atmosphere changed noticeably. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card approached Bush to whisper the news of the second crash. And over a seven-minute interval that would be picked apart for years, the president鈥檚 focus seemed to drift between the children in front of him and the horrors unfolding in Manhattan. Brogan called the moment 鈥渆xtraordinary.鈥�

鈥淗e didn’t change his expression, but the color in his face visibly changed, especially for people who were only a few feet from him. It was crystal-clear that whatever he just heard was very disturbing.”

As the activity wound down, the president excused himself to join a call with national security leaders. After stopping to deliver brief remarks from the school鈥檚 media center, including a moment of silence for the still-uncounted victims, Bush鈥檚 entourage headed immediately to Air Force One. The advocacy tour was over. A wartime presidency had begun.

The ties linking 9/11 with NCLB were the result of a historical accident. During the 20 years that passed since that day, the U.S. government undertook generational commitments to both rid the world of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism and provide an excellent education to every American child. Begun amid a swell of bipartisan approval, both missions fell far short of their goals as the afterglow of national unity first ebbed, then extinguished altogether. And while much of the vision of NCLB is preserved in federal law, controversial requirements around school accountability have been significantly loosened; some of the law’s original architects even attribute its demise, in substantial part, to a combination of hyperpartisanship and neglect that arose as the Bush administration turned its focus to the ever-expanding War on Terror.

“This is really what 9/11 meant: People moved on to other things,鈥� said Sandy Kress, an education advisor to President Bush who helped lead the White House鈥檚 efforts to lobby for NCLB. 鈥淎fghanistan and Al Qaeda, plus the return of normal politics, that was huge. The president certainly moved on, and so did the rest of the world.鈥�

Moving at 鈥榖reakneck speed 鈥� for Washington鈥�

Kress came to Washington after the 2000 election to transform the sweeping education proposals of then-Gov. Bush鈥檚 campaign into legislation. He spent years before that as a power player in Texas politics, serving as president of the Dallas school board before receiving appointments to a series of commissions empaneled throughout the 1990s to improve the state鈥檚 schools.

At that time, Washington鈥檚 role in K-12 schools offered barely a hint of what it would later become. The principal statute governing federal interventions in education, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, had been reauthorized in 1994 as the Improving America鈥檚 Schools Act, a fairly radical revision that required states to make 鈥渁dequate yearly progress鈥� toward proficiency for all their students. But reforms were still driven overwhelmingly by a set of ambitious governors: like Roy Roemer of Colorado, Jim Hunt of North Carolina and Bush of Texas.

By the time ESEA was due for another reauthorization, leaders in both parties were settling on a single model of reform. States would set high standards, deliver the instruction necessary to help students meet them, and institute regular assessments to keep an eye on their progress.

鈥淚 think people at the federal level realized they couldn’t get away any longer with simply saying, ‘America’s children aren’t learning enough, but just keep doing what you’re doing,’鈥� said Brogan, who was elected as Florida鈥檚 commissioner of schools in 1994 and would go on to lead the state university systems of both Florida and Pennsylvania before serving as assistant secretary of education under president Donald Trump. 鈥淲e had to come up with some new ideas…and at least spell out with clarity what kinds of things children were expected to master with each of the passing grade levels.”

That bipartisan convergence was reflected in placed on education reform by the campaigns of both Bush and Democrat Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election, argued Tom Loveless, former director of the Brookings Institution鈥檚 Brown Center on Education Policy. Bush, whose own package of reforms in Texas had won the admiration of even some Democrats in Congress 鈥� including California Rep. George Miller, an avowed liberal serving on the House Education and Workforce Committee 鈥� was only too happy to break with prevailing orthodoxy in order to build his brand as a different kind of Republican. That included moving away from the party鈥檚 oft-stated commitment to abolish the federal Department of Education.

鈥淏ush simply jettisoned that,鈥� Loveless said. 鈥淗e dropped it completely 鈥� it was in the ’96 platform, but it was not in the 2000 platform because the Bush people wouldn’t allow it in.”

“That whole sweet thing that was put together in the 鈥�80s and came together in various states and then saw this incredible peak in Washington in 2001 鈥� all of that largely fell apart because of 9/11, and the failure of everyone on all sides to hold it together in the wake of 9/11.”
鈥擲andy Kress, education advisor to former President George W. Bush.

Bush began setting a course for a major new education law almost as soon as the Supreme Court handed him the presidency, meeting at the White House in January with Miller, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and future Republican House Speaker John Boehner. , as the proposal soon became known, passed through both chambers even though it was loaded with tough language on equity and accountability. Under the new law, states would be required to test all students between grades 3-8, separate the data by class and ethnicity, and publish detailed school report cards based on the results. Billions of dollars in new federal funding would be allocated to support improvement efforts.

Margaret Spellings 鈥� a senior Bush advisor whom he would later appoint as U.S. secretary of education 鈥� said she didn鈥檛 fully appreciate at the time how quickly the initiative came together.

“I was a relative newcomer [to national politics], and little did I know that this was all happening at breakneck speed for Washington,鈥� she said. 鈥淧articularly when we fast-forward 20 years, it really is amazing that this mammoth piece of policy, the major elements of which stand to this day, got done that fast.”

But the process stalled in conference, a lengthy process intended to iron out the differences between House and Senate versions. As the summer dragged on, dozens of conferees worked through a torturous debate over how to define adequate yearly progress, then left Washington for August recess. The economy was in recession, and the president鈥檚 approval ratings were ticking downward. Eager to return permanently to Texas, Kress began to worry how long his sojourn in the capital would last.

“By the end of the summer, things were not so rosy,鈥� he recalled. 鈥淲e were thinking about trying to rev it up and get going again, and that’s how that Florida trip was planned.鈥�

Reinvigorating bipartisanship

At around 8:15 a.m. on September 11, Kress was in the president鈥檚 suite at Sarasota鈥檚 Colony Beach and Tennis resort, presenting him with talking points and a visual aid 鈥� a chart showing America鈥檚 education expenditures growing over time, plotted against stagnant national test scores 鈥� for what he hoped would be a news-making speech at Booker Elementary.

On campus, Kress skipped the classroom visit to brief reporters before the president took the stage. Instead, he watched with them as a television at the school鈥檚 media center broadcast live footage of United Airlines Flight 175 slamming into the World Trade Center鈥檚 South Tower. As the Secret Service moved hurriedly to coordinate the group鈥檚 departure, the stagecraft morphed from political salesmanship to an emergency speech.

鈥淣ow we’re getting instructions: ‘You are to come with me and stand right here, and the president’s going to give some remarks. First thing, take down the chart’ 鈥� I did that 鈥� ‘and then stand right here. And when the president says his last words, he will go, and you’ll be right on him, and you’re to get in the car.’ It was all solemn and lockstep.鈥�

From the Sarasota airport, Air Force One sped to Louisiana鈥檚 Barksdale Air Force Base (鈥淭he plane took off faster than I’d ever lifted off on a plane, and got higher than I’d ever been on a plane,鈥� Kress noted.) There it shed most of its passengers while Bush, still considered a potential target, delivered before departing to another location with his key political and security staffers. With virtually every airplane in the country grounded, Kress and his companions only arrived back in Washington that evening, in time to see the smoking wreckage of the Pentagon attack.

Along with his fears for the country, and intermittently his own safety, he couldn鈥檛 help worrying about the fate of the historic law he鈥檇 spent most of the year negotiating. Would the massive loss of life, to say nothing of the inevitable military action that would follow, leave room for a huge, expensive law overhauling K-12 schools?

As it turned out, he would later reflect, the collective outrage provoked by the attacks proved vastly more effective at pushing NCLB to the finish line than any messaging event could have. Congress would soon be occupied with authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan and drafting the USA Patriot Act, but both Democrats and Republicans also sought the chance to pass a major piece of domestic legislation and show that the nation鈥檚 business was still underway.

鈥�9/11 probably reinvigorates bipartisanship for a bit,鈥� said Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist at Bowdoin College on the politics of NCLB. 鈥淎nd there was an idea that we have to show, as a country, that we can make progress on things other than terrorism and war: 鈥楾his is something we’ve already gotten most of the way through, and we should do it.鈥�”

Before the year was out, overwhelming majorities in both the House and Senate voted to accept the version of the bill that emerged from the conference committee. On January 8, 2002, Bush signed it, flanked by its congressional stewards, at an Ohio school located in Boehner鈥檚 district. The group then proceeded to Kennedy鈥檚 home state of Massachusetts for a celebration at the famed exam school Boston Latin. Only time constraints prevented them from flying to Miller鈥檚 California stomping grounds, Kress said.

In retrospect, No Child Left Behind was likely too far down the tracks to be derailed by events. But, as Spellings argued, the rush of purpose and unity following 9/11 put 鈥渁 rocket booster鈥� under it; moreover, national attention was significantly diverted from the last months of negotiations, which may have made final concessions go down smoother.

鈥淭hey were trying to hold that coalition together without offending the far left or far right,鈥� Loveless said 鈥� a towering task, given that teachers disliked the new testing requirements and conservatives resented losing out on a longed-for federal voucher program. 鈥淏ush really wanted a bipartisan bill, and I think the focus on foreign policy allowed them to do whatever they needed to do in conference and get the bill out.”

A short honeymoon

American flags were still flying from windows, and the renewed sense of national assurance only beginning to waver, when skepticism of NCLB began festering in school districts and state capitals.

Conflict arose almost immediately over new money. Under the law, total federal funding for K-12 schools between 2000 and 2003. But for schools now awakening to the threat of sanctions (including governance changes like the mass replacement of staff or restructuring as a charter school) if their students didn鈥檛 make consistent, measurable strides toward college readiness, it seemed unfair that escalating expectations on their staffs weren鈥檛 accompanied by continuing commitments of resources.

Their doubts spread soon enough to the public at large. In Brookings, Loveless noted that surveys from the law鈥檚 early years demonstrated little widespread understanding of its impact, including penalties for consistently underperforming schools. But as participants learned more of 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 key provisions, they consistently came to like it less, he found.

“I think one thing NCLB was able to paper over was the fact that it did have punitive measures involved,鈥� Loveless argued. 鈥淲hen people were polled on the question, in 2001 or 2002, ‘What do you do with a failing school?,’ respondents overwhelmingly supported giving more resources to that school 鈥� not closing it or transferring teachers or anything like that.”

Combined with its 鈥渦topianism鈥� 鈥� the law put forward the aspiration that every student in the country would reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014, a starry-eyed notion that later became a punchline 鈥� 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 main weakness lay in its fundamental challenge to Americans鈥� sunny perceptions of schools, Loveless said.

鈥淚t’s been a mainstay in polling: People are just happy with their local schools. And parents are even happier with the schools they send their own children to. So once it became evident that those schools were also endangered by sanctions and maybe weren’t quite what they were cracked up to be, [the law] lost some popularity.鈥�

Eventually the dissatisfaction spread to Washington, where even 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 supporters were increasingly bogged down in the fervid debate over whether Bush鈥檚 鈥淕lobal War on Terror鈥� should extend to Iraq. Along with industry groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, a diverse alliance of civil rights organizations including EdTrust, La Raza, and the Urban League had pushed hard to make testing and accountability a reality in every American school; but by 2004, NAACP chairman its mandates of fostering a 鈥渄rill-and-kill curriculum.鈥�

Consistent blows were landed by none other than Kennedy, a figure as vital to 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 passage as any except the president. On the second anniversary of the happy ceremony held at Boston Latin, Kennedy鈥檚 office issued giving Bush a 鈥淒-minus鈥� for rolling out his signature education reform. In an unmistakable dig at Bush鈥檚 famous photo op of the previous year, the release called it 鈥渨ay too soon for the 鈥楳ission Accomplished鈥� banner on No Child Left Behind.鈥�

For the temporary boost it delivered to American pride and purpose, Kress said, September 11 ultimately sabotaged the 鈥渘ice, short-term story鈥� of 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 enactment.

鈥淧assing a bill should be a very positive event in a movement, but if you think passing a bill is the culmination of a movement, then you don’t understand politics,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat whole sweet thing that was put together in the 鈥�80s and came together in various states and then saw this incredible peak in Washington in 2001 鈥� all of that largely fell apart because of 9/11, and the failure of everyone on all sides to hold it together in the wake of 9/11.”

Though 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 authors intended for the law to be reauthorized by 2007, it remained in effect for another eight years as controversy built up over its demands on states and school districts. have credited the landmark legislation with lifting student achievement and closing achievement gaps , but it has also been blamed for through an over-reliance on testing.

Those concerns contributed to the push to replace NCLB with the Every Student Succeeds Act, which offered states more latitude to design their own systems for measuring school performance. In the years since its 2015 passage, committed reformers have complained that the new law is far too slack, allowing states to potentially ignore failing schools and that reveal which students are falling behind.

Spellings credited 狈颁尝叠鈥檚 supporters in Congress, industry, and the civil rights world with ensuring that many of its key principles remained in place. But she also warned that a political retreat from testing and accountability was underway, 鈥渇lying under the banner of COVID and mental health and all other manner of bullshit.鈥�

“The secret sauce 鈥� and this is what’s under threat in the states 鈥� is annual assessments, disaggregated data, and transparency,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t’s at risk.”

Rudalevige鈥檚 research as a political scientist ultimately led him to study the growing powers of the 鈥渋mperial presidency.鈥� He agreed that it became increasingly challenging for politicians to mend or improve NCLB 鈥� still less reauthorize it 鈥� once debates over the War on Terror came to 鈥渄istract attention and dissolve whatever bipartisanship was still left.鈥�.

“Could you do it if you had full presidential attention? Maybe, but Bush didn’t have that, and he didn’t have the institutional resources to make it work without that. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could put on auto-pilot.”

Lead Image: President George W. Bush was reading with a group of Florida second-graders when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, delivered the news that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. (Paul Richards and George W. Bush Presidential Library/Getty Images) Photo illustration by Meghan Gallagher/麻豆精品

She granted a blanket, one-year 鈥�accountability waiver.鈥� But in February, with a new administration in place, then-Education Secretary nominee Miguel Cardona said he鈥檇 require states to administer the federally mandated tests in the spring, with an asterisk: They had the option of giving shorter, remote, or delayed versions.

Now, as students begin a third year of school under the cloud of COVID-19, a pair of researchers suggest that those two moves, by two administrations, may have made the results of annual testing less valuable 鈥� and could harm the delicate political support such testing still enjoys.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 麻豆精品 Newsletter

Using different versions of tests makes the results less comparable across different years and school districts. And shorter tests produce less 鈥渁ctionable鈥� information about individual student achievement in the short term, said Dan Goldhaber of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the University of Washington.

鈥淭he waivers looked to us like they made state tests less useful for diagnostic purposes, both for parents and for teachers,鈥� Goldhaber said in an interview.

In a new , Goldhaber, along with Paul Bruno of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, say that as states begin planning for next spring鈥檚 tests, they should consider exactly how useful the results are for families, who spent much of the past school year getting an up-close look at just how much their children know.

When these tests return full-force in schools post-pandemic, as they likely will in 2022, they run the risk of being out-of-step with parents鈥� new, pandemic-fueled understanding of their children鈥檚 needs, the authors warn.

If the test results can鈥檛 help guide decisions about student placement and skills levels, they could lose what tenuous political support they still have, according to the analysis.

The researchers looked at testing policies nationwide and found that in most states, educators use tests either for diagnostics, for research and evaluation, or as the basis for accountability systems.

But they might also be better used to provide 鈥渁ctionable and timely information鈥� about how to help individual students do better in the subjects tested. If results could be disaggregated more often and in a timely fashion, they say, that would help parents and teachers look more closely at students鈥� skill levels and academic needs.

As it is, they say, state test results 鈥渙ften take several months to make it into the hands of educators or families, impeding the use of testing to help individual students.鈥�

鈥淲e need to make sure, I think, that they are useful for more than just accountability purposes,鈥� said Goldhaber, who is also affiliated with the American Institutes for Research.

He noted, for instance, that in Washington State, many high-achieving students in underrepresented minority groups, who wouldn鈥檛 typically be assigned to advanced classes, get that option based on end-of-year assessment results. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e used for those kinds of things, but I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 well-known,鈥� he said.

Twenty years after No Child Left Behind first mandated widespread spring testing in K-12 schools, the authors say refocusing the tests could also keep them from losing popular support among parents and teachers.

Federal testing requirements are 鈥減opular in the abstract,鈥� Bruno and Goldhaber write, but that support appears fragile: 41 percent of respondents in a 2020 Phi Delta Kappa poll said there鈥檚 鈥渢oo much emphasis on achievement testing鈥� in public schools, up from 37 percent in 2008 and just 20 percent in 1997.

They also note that support for testing drops 20 percentage points when respondents are told that test administration takes, on average, eight hours of class time annually.

鈥淚 think there鈥檚 probably less public support than there was, certainly, when No Child Left Behind passed鈥� in 2001, Goldhaber said.

Because of remote schooling, Goldhaber said, 鈥淢any parents have a window into what鈥檚 actually going on inside the classroom, in a way that they did not have before the pandemic, because they could sit in with their kids during classes.鈥�

But in many cases, he said, the test results don鈥檛 necessarily offer 鈥渃oncrete information that suggests maybe your kids need help with complex fractions 鈥� the kind of information that you could at least imagine would inform parent-teacher meeting discussions.鈥�

Jonathan Schweig, a researcher at the RAND Corp. and a professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School who studies education policy and teacher evaluations, among other topics, said he generally agreed with Bruno鈥檚 and Goldhaber鈥檚 notion that using tests for diagnostic purposes might be a way to increase public support.

Echoing Goldhaber鈥檚 point about concrete data, he said state summative tests generally 鈥渨ere not designed to provide diagnostic or instructionally useful information. Even under routine conditions, the tests are administered towards the end of the school year, and score reports are returned to schools and families during the summer, after the school year has ended.鈥�

Schweig also said the scores generated by these assessment systems 鈥渁re not at a grain size that would be useful to support remediation or other diagnostic uses.鈥�

Summative tests, he said, 鈥渁re best thought of as providing one piece of information about student learning, but they do not provide the only piece and perhaps not even the most important piece. As such, it is important for school leaders to think comprehensively about assessment and design coherent systems that include a mix of formative, interim and state-wide summative assessments.鈥�

Any broad new federal testing policies will have to wait until Congress approves a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which helps fund public schools. That could take years, since lawmakers typically push back the timeline for reauthorization by years. But in today鈥檚 political climate, Goldhaber said, 鈥淚 think that if we were to have a negotiation right now, I don鈥檛 know that the tests would survive.鈥�

Whatever happened to Common Core?

That鈥檚 the question that veteran education researcher Tom Loveless asks in the final chapter of , Between the State and the Schoolhouse: Understanding the Failure of Common Core. Released this spring by Harvard Education Press, the slim volume examines the debate around the ambitious reform and the inherent limits of trying to improve education systems through regulatory means.

To the regret of its (often very vocal) detractors, nothing much seems to have happened to Common Core; even after a furious political battle in the late Obama years, most states still have some version of the controversial academic standards on the books. States attempting to replace them with new learning frameworks were often engaged in than a substantive overhaul, and once a few years had passed, politicians moved on to new skirmishes in the education culture wars.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 麻豆精品 Newsletter

But a decade after they were first adopted by states, little evidence exists to show that teaching or learning was significantly improved by the vast resources poured into implementing the standards. At least one study has found students in states that were early adopters of Common Core scored slightly lower on both the National Assessment of Educational Progress鈥檚 reading and math portions. If the point of spending billions of dollars to establish the mammoth set of new learning guidelines was to make sure kids became 鈥渃ollege- and career-ready鈥� (to use a term that was ubiquitous around 2013), not much progress seems to have been made toward that goal.

A former sixth-grade teacher, Harvard professor, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Loveless has watched the development of academic standards for decades, ultimately concluding that they are an ineffective tool to improve K-12 education. As he argued to 麻豆精品鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken, regulatory reforms like Common Core are riven with utopian expectations and unlikely to change what actually goes on in classrooms.

鈥淭he problem is inherent to top-down efforts at controlling curriculum and instruction,鈥� Loveless writes in the book. 鈥淭his is not a problem that another set of standards can solve. If standards came out tomorrow, and I agreed with every single word in them, I would still give them only a slim chance of being faithfully implemented 鈥� and less than that of moving the needle on student achievement.鈥�

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Kevin Mahnken: Your book focuses deeply on the shortcomings of academic standards. But as a reporter, the impression I’ve developed has been that K-12 education has really been driven over the last few decades by testing and accountability reforms like No Child Left Behind. Do you think people underestimate the importance of standards 鈥� not just Common Core, but also the state based standards that preceded it?

Tom Loveless: The accountability movement of the ’90s was all based on standards. There was no state in my memory that went out and created an accountability system where the accountability was based on something other than standards. They all had tests, which were written on a grade-level basis to conform with the standards those states had adopted. So it’s hard to untangle accountability from the question of standards.

In the book, I took a much longer historical perspective. I go back over 100 years to look at standards as a regulatory tool: You’ve got upper-level officials who are trying to influence what schools do with kids in terms of what they teach. That’s been going on forever, and always with limited success. It’s hard for the top of the system to have a large impact on what happens at the bottom of the system.”

That sounds right in terms of the different levers of school reform 鈥� tests are based on standards, grad schools prepare future educators to teach to those standards, etc. So they’re at the center of things.

Right, but there’s a nuance there: Those early accountability systems were not about making sure teachers followed the standards; they made sure that teachers and schools produced scores on tests that were aligned to the standards. That’s actually a completely different thing. It was test-based accountability, and there’s a separate literature on that that’s fairly positive. If you hold schools accountable for scoring on a test, and have either rewards or sanctions, you can raise those test scores. There are three or four well-designed studies that show that.

But that’s a whole different issue from what Common Core was about. If you go back and read all the Common Core documents, those standards don’t touch the accountability question at all. And as a matter of fact, the accountability systems post-Common Core 鈥� some of the Common Core authors suspect this is why Common Core had little impact 鈥� withered away. We have very soft accountability today compared with NCLB, which kind of poisoned the waters for accountability because of the way it was designed.

Do you think the basic proposition of standards-based reform 鈥� i.e., that some students just weren’t being held to high standards 鈥� was valid? It sounds like you’re saying that rigorous academic expectations aren’t enough on their own to improve K-12 education, but are they a necessary ingredient?

Yes, some states did have standards that were too low. Some districts, some schools, some teachers had standards that were too low. But the question is, can you then force states with low standards to have high standards, and will that have a positive impact? I don’t think you can.

There was a lot of research in the ’90s and the ’00s: Mississippi or some other state had terrible standards, and lots of kids were scoring proficient, but on NAEP, they never even got close [to proficiency]. So obviously the state has much lower standards than what you’d want. But the people in Mississippi read the newspaper; they know their NAEP scores. And where’s the political pressure from the state, from the bottom up, to fix that? Now, in a lot of places, there was that pressure. But if it’s not there, can you come in from some supra-state level and force higher standards onto a state that they implement with fidelity, and eventually believe in? Because if they don鈥檛, you’re probably not going to get very much.

Now take that same argument and just swap out the actors: Can a state come in and do the same thing to a reluctant district? Can a district come in and do it with a reluctant school? See, I don’t even think a school principal can do that in his own building with a teacher who has low standards. So the idea that we’re going to have this broad-scaled, top-down implementation of standards in a way that improves learning 鈥� that’s the thing I’m skeptical of. It’s just never worked, and it didn’t work with Common Core. So the whole approach is flawed.

The most recent evidence I’ve seen about the impact of Common Core on academic achievement comes from Joshua Bleiberg’s study in AERA Open, which found a pretty modest boost to NAEP math scores. Is that typical of the research findings thus far, and do we have reason to think that the reform’s effects could grow with time?

I consider the Bleiberg effect, a positive effect of about .1 standard deviations, to be the upper bound of what the different studies show. The , which I spend more time with in the book, shows a .1 [standard deviation] decrease, which is kind of the lower bound, and all of my own studies fall in between those two boundaries. The probable real effect of Common Core 鈥� although I’m not that confident in any of these studies, including my own 鈥� is probably somewhere within that range. And that is disappointing, there’s no other way to say it. Especially over many, many years of implementation, all the money that was spent on it, all the teacher development, and the debate that got so bitter and nutty. What a distraction to get us so fired up over one-tenth of a standard deviation. It’s just miniscule.

There’s one thing in the study that gets at the question: “What if we just stuck with this thing? Maybe there are great things that are going to happen just over the horizon.” If you read Bleiberg’s analysis, most of the effect kicks in after the first two years. It’s not going up; if anything, it’s petering out. The C-SAIL study found that the effect was not only negative, but that it was getting more negative over time. So even though those two studies have different signs in front of the effect 鈥� one’s positive, one’s negative 鈥� they really kind of find the same thing: The most positive impact was very early in the process of implementing Common Core. To me, that makes total sense because all the professional development, the initial billions of dollars, was all spent in the first few years to get this thing off the ground. I don’t know any study of professional development that says, ‘Oh, wait a decade, and then really good things kick in.’ It just doesn’t work that way.

You mentioned that you’re not totally sure about the findings in these studies, including your own. What are the challenges in measuring effects from reforms like Common Core?

In my work, I don’t even make a causal claim because there are too many impediments to do that.

Both Bleiberg and the C-SAIL study used an interrupted time series design. In order to do that, you need to have a very clear break period: Here’s when this thing didn’t exist, and then on this day, it existed. There are studies that use that design very effectively 鈥� for instance, a Josh Angrist study of [the effects of] lowering the age at which people can buy alcohol, which was a big issue in the ’70s. A lot of states lowered their legal drinking age from 21 to 18, and those laws went into effect at midnight on January 1. So suddenly, the bars were filled with 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds, whereas before, they couldn’t get in. There was a clear cut-point in the state’s actions that could be measured in terms of pre and post. Academic standards just don’t work that way.

A few different researchers studying Common Core, including myself, ended up going about it in the same way. Virtually all the states in the country adopted Common Core, and you had to sort them: one group that really did Common Core, another group that sort of adopted it and did a half-baked approach, and then the five states that just rejected Common Core. Those were the three groups whose NAEP scores I tried to measure over time. Pretty much all of my analysis showed the same thing, which was very little effect.

Another problem was that the natural comparison group is the five states that rejected Common Core from the beginning: Texas, Virginia, Nebraska, Alaska, and Minnesota in math 鈥� they kept their existing math standards but adopted the ELA standards. But each of those states, if you go back and read the standards they did adopt, they’re not terribly different from Common Core. And it’s not as if Common Core was revolutionary; it wasn’t the first set of standards that said, ‘You know, we should teach kids fractions!’ I would argue that Common Core has 80-90 percent overlap with the previous standards that a lot of states had.

So that invites the notion of just what the change was. Of course, the Common Core people would say, ‘It led to better curriculum, better instruction, better tests,’ and again, there’s no evidence of that. Anyway, that’s just a taste of some of the methodological constraints on measuring this.

Is the main problem here that states and districts didn’t implement Common Core well? Or is it just asking too much of academic standards to expect them to really improve teaching and learning? It seems like Morgan Polikoff, a professor at the University of Southern California who also wrote for Harvard, feels that . 

I just did on [American Enterprise Institute scholar] Nat Malkus’s podcast. He started with that question: Is it a problem of implementation, or a problem with the theory of action? Morgan and I both said that the theory itself is flawed. We can’t engineer our way to better standards.

Again, standards are a regulatory tool, and we’re not going to be able to simply regulate better K-12 learning. It’s not going to work that way. Just to give an example 鈥� and this isn’t necessarily bad or good implementation, it’s just what happens 鈥� when you ask some teachers or district people what the main tenets of Common Core mathematics are, they’ll say, ‘Well, kids need to be working in groups.’ And then they’ll list a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with Common Core, which does not mandate that kids work in groups. It doesn’t even talk about that! It was like NCLB in that if you asked people what it meant, you’d get different answers in different places.

Not long ago, I wrote an article about the press coverage of Common Core and its implementation. Within a couple of years of Common Core’s adoption, you’d have journalists attending these workshops where professional development was being given. And in a particular math workshop, the developer was saying all the stuff I just mentioned: “You need to put your kids in groups, you need to be using manipulatives, you need to deemphasize procedures and rote learning, you need to emphasize conceptual understanding.” Now, Common Core does shoulder some guilt on the conceptual understanding thing, but it doesn’t say you should deemphasize anything.

The point is that, everywhere across the country, we have educators who have belief systems of their own. And if they believe in putting kids in groups, or believe in what we used to call ‘progressive education,’ or student-centered instructional practices, they’re going to interpret any policy coming down the line to promote those things; they’re going to read the documents through that lens. It’s not a heartfelt effort to distort, and these people aren’t sinister. It鈥檚 just how they read things. So you’re going to get actual implementation that’s different from what’s on paper, like the old children’s game of telephone where things sound different at the end of the line. That’s not corrupt intent, it’s that you have so many people sifting through these things as they make their way down the system.

It sounds like if you want to really change instruction through academic standards, you’d have to be so prescriptive just to avoid people doing something totally unrelated to what you want. 

And besides that, standards tend to be utopian. They tend to be aspirational, wishful thinking, and Common Core is a clear example of that. Common Core used this phrase, “college- and career-ready,” and then mapped standards back from the twelfth grade. But nobody yet has defined “career-ready” in such a way that doesn’t really just mean “college-ready.” At least, I haven’t seen any good definition of career readiness come out of these standards movements. So you can just delete the word “career,” and essentially what these standards are saying is, “Everybody, 100 percent, will be ready for college by the end of high school.” That’s very much like NCLB’s 100 percent proficiency goal. So what did the test makers, both PARCC and Smarter Balanced, do? They adopted NAEP proficiency as their standard.

The last batch of data I saw from the states that still use Smarter Balanced showed that 32 percent of eleventh-graders pass in math, and 68 percent fall below the threshold indicating readiness. If Common Core were working at all 鈥� and if we should have faith in this test to measure a goal that we could actually achieve 鈥� we’d be doing better than 32 percent. I mean, are you going to deny a diploma to two-thirds of the kids because they fail math? Politically, it’s a non-starter.

A lot of the reformers point to high-achieving countries like Singapore and South Korea, but if you map international assessments like TIMSS and PISA onto NAEP proficiency, it shows that at least 25 percent of their populations would fail. And these are the highest-achieving countries on the planet. So the goals are ones that no society has ever attained, and it’s not going to happen.

You’ve also written previously about the fact that NAEP proficiency levels might just be set too high. The NCES commissioner basically said as much in of the National Assessments Governing Board.

It turns our national test, which should be something that gives real information, into a kind of disinformation. It makes it like one of those late-night cable ads: “You can look like this if you just buy cans of this stuff and drink it five times a day!” It doesn’t work, it winds up undermining the validity, and I think Common Core suffers from it all. If you look at the outcomes by the end of high school, they’re much more than ambitious; they’re unrealistic.