With the federal role in education up for debate in Congress, the Obama administration has revealed its misdirected priorities for education reform.
Rather than focus on how to improve education, the administration is preoccupied with spending levels.
Spending levels and the quality of education are not necessarily related. Since 1971, total per-pupil spending on education has roughly doubled, even after adjusting for inflation. In that same timeframe, scores on the Nation’s Report Card have shown little to no improvement.
When the administration threatened to veto a House education reform bill, a large portion of the administration’s statement focused on what it deemed as lackluster funding. “Rather than investing more in schools, H.R. 5 would allow States to divert education funding away from the schools and students who need it the most,” the statement read. “The bill’s caps on Federal education spending would lock in recent Federal Budget cuts for the rest of the decade … H.R. 5 fails to make critical investments for this Nation’s students … The Administration opposes H.R. 5 in its current form for all of these reasons, but particularly because it would deny Federal funds to the classrooms that need them the most.” The statement shows an unjustified concern with funding levels rather than student success.
The administration is also too focused on boosting funding for schools that serve racial minorities, rather than simply improving the education of poorly-performing students regardless of their race. If a student is falling behind their peers, the education system should be reformed to help them no matter what race they are.
“[The House Bill] abdicates the historic Federal role in elementary and secondary education of ensuring the educational progress of all of America’s students, including students of color,” the veto threat read. The threat included language about low-performing schools, but not specifically low-performing students.
With all these misdirected priorities, it’s almost as if the Obama administration doesn’t want education reform to pass at all. Indeed, the administration would gain from a lack of reform.
No Child Left Behind was supposed to be reformed in 2007. As time has gone on, the standards of No Child Left Behind have become unrealistic and their burden too heavy to bear for a large majority of states. As a result, 45 states went to Obama’s Department of Education to ask for waivers from the law, 43 of which were approved and are instead operating under education rules preferred by the administration.
Why would the Obama administration support education reform through Congress when it can wield so much power unilaterally?
The problem for the administration is that its power ends in less than two years. If the Obama administration wants any of its preferred education reforms to have long-term power, it will have to compromise with the Republican Congress to get reform passed. Instead, the administration seems set to let the clock run out on its unilateral power and to let comprehensive education reform pass under the next administration.
All this might change when Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., unveil a bipartisan education reform bill within the next month. Whatever compromise bill Alexander and Murray create should have good odds of passing the Senate education committee they lead, although the full Senate may be a different story and the House would definitely have longer odds.
Whether or not the Obama administration truly wants education reform, it is focusing on the wrong issues. It shouldn’t matter how much money the federal government is spending, as long as that money gets results. It shouldn’t matter what race a student is, as long as students are getting the most effective education possible.
