Same crappy food, new name

Complex systems maven Scott Page wrote an interesting blog on the Huffington Post today. The first line is quite attractive:

No Child Left Behind looks headed for the scrap heap.

Indeed, pundits have recently become pretty certain about NCLB’s demise. According to Richard Rothstein:

NCLB is dead. It will not be reauthorized -- not this year, not ever.

Then why isn’t the anti-NCLB crowd dancing in the streets? When do we get to sing "Ding dong the wicked act is dead!" We don't. Page asserts this to be true: the federal government's involvement in education will remain at its current level. And no matter who is at the helm, this frightens many of us. The federal government is hard for us to influence, and we have little faith that the lessons of these six years under No Child Left Behind have really been learned. Learning from history doesn't seem to be a strong suit down there in Washington.

So what will happen? We don't know. Page's article envisions a new law, the "All Children Moving Ahead Act." It sounds super nice. It privileges innovation and collaboration. It allows for minimum standards to be met in a variety of ways rather than via one test. Blah blah blah. I remember when I was a teenager there was a terrible restaurant two towns over. Bad food, bad service, peeling paint, dirty bathrooms. Your basic crap fest. So when it went out of business the new owners put a new sign out front and changed the menu descriptions. Bad food, bad service, peeling paint, dirty bathrooms - they all remained.

Unlike Page, Rothstein envisions Washington releasing its grip and simply ignoring education altogether. He makes a few good suggestions for our next administration:

With the federal government proven incapable of micromanaging the nation's 100,000 schools, what education roles remain for a new administration? There are two....One is to provide information about student performance, not for accountability but to guide state policy...The other new federal role should be fiscal equalization...Narrowing huge fiscal disparities will take time. Whether the next Democratic Congress and administration -- if they are Democratic -- take the first steps will test whether the party is truly committed to leaving no child behind.

Like the All Children Moving Ahead Act, this sounds very nice. But nice things like equality don't happen without a fight. None of these things will happen if Washington is left to its own devices. So, NCLB is dead. Whether the feds are going to bury NCLB and enact a zombie version of the undead law in its place, or simply turn the other way and let the schools self destruct, won't matter if we allow ourselves to get lulled into complacency by this "NCLB is dead" talk. I, for one, will not be sitting around waiting for the next administration to change the menu and serve the same old vile stew. The law is "dead" after six long years of pounding on the door...perhaps we've got their ears? The time for a united voice, with clear demands, is now.