Education Next – Paul E. Peterson
“George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the century’s first two presidents, took up the challenge. For all their differences on how best to stimulate economic growth, secure the national defense, and fix the health-care conundrum, the two presidents shared a surprisingly common approach to school reform: both preferred the regulatory strategy. In 2001, Bush persuaded Congress to pass a new law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which created the nation’s first reform-minded federal regulatory regime in education. When NCLB ran into trouble, Obama invented new ways of extending the top-down approach. Unfortunately, neither president came close to closing racial gaps or lifting student achievement to international levels. The Obama administration is now packing up and heading home, leaving the regulatory machine in ruins. A new federal law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), has unraveled most of the federal red tape. Although the mandate for student testing continues, the use of the tests is now a state and local matter. School districts and teachers unions are rubbing their hands at the prospect of reasserting local control.”(more)