On April 26, 2017, President
Trump signed an executive order to start pulling the Federal Government out of
K-12 education. This action has been
expected, especially after he nominated Betsy DeVos as Secretary of
Education. The executive order has moved
the emphasis of the Federal government from ensuring educational equality to
promoting educational choice.
This executive order has a
foundational basis in the United States Constitution, which does not mention
education at all. Therefore, based on
the 10th Amendment, the governance of education is left to the
states. For strict constructionists,
this move by President Trump is constitutional and welcomed.
However, the broad
constructionists point to Article I, Section 8 of the United States
Constitution, which states that Congress shall provide for the “general welfare
of the United States.” The general
welfare has been interpreted to include quality education for all
children. This has resulted in the
Federal government being involved in K-12 education, especially in recent
years.
The executive order signed by
President Trump is, at the least, short-sighted in the present and devastating
for the long run. One only has to go
back to the 1950s to find critical interventions by the Federal government in
K-12 education in the United States.
In the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court ruling,
the Supreme Court finally overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) ruling which
had made Separate but Equal facilities constitutional in the United
States. In education, separate but equal
resulted in unequal education.
On September 2, 1958, the
National Defense Education Act was quickly passed as a reaction to the Soviet
Union’s launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957.
This act provided additional funds to states and local school districts
to enhance curriculum and instruction in science and math courses. Many of these grants became known as the
Eisenhower Grants.
Shortly after President Kennedy’s
assassination in 1963, President Lyndon Johnson declared his Great Society
campaign, which included his War on Poverty.
Begun in 1965, Head Start, which is still with us today, was an
essential part of this program.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act
outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
In 1965, Title I, as part of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, provided additional financial
assistance to local school districts with a high percentage of poor children.
Title IX in 1972: No person in
the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation
in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any
education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. When I began teaching in Knox County Schools
in 1973, the high schools did not have any athletic teams for girls. Girls’ basketball, volleyball, soccer, and
softball all came about as a result of Title IX.
Two recent programs instituted by
the Federal government which have become politically controversial are No Child
Left Behind and the Common Core Standards.
Not all of No Child Left Behind can be considered a failure. It did hold
schools more accountable for what students were learning. Some of the accountability pieces of the
legislation are still with us.
It should be remembered that the
Common Core Standards originated with the states and not the federal
government. The United States Department
of Education simply adopted these standards, especially in math, as
requirements to receive Race to the Top funds.
Many of the criticisms of the standards in math were unfounded and some
criticisms about other disciplines, which do not have common core standards,
were basically false. If students in the
United States are to make gains in mathematics when compared with students in
other advanced countries, common core standards must be implemented by the
state governments.
All of the programs and rulings
listed above came from the Federal government.
Many of those who advocate
returning education to the states and excluding the role of the Federal
government in especially K-12 education, make the following claim, “Local
school boards know what’s best for the children in their communities.” But is this correct? The economic competition and technological
threats faced by our children today are international. Many local school boards and/or individual
school board members are so provincial in their outlook that they do not
comprehend the global competition we face.
I have been an educator for 43
years in two different states, and I have seen individuals run for a seat on
the local school board specifically in order to fire the football coach, fire
the superintendent or director of schools, force changes in the curriculum, or
they have some other “axe to grind” with the school system. One of my students came to class a few days
ago very upset. The local school board
in her home town canceled the band program and fired the band director in order
to balance the budget. Don’t
misunderstand my point. Most school
board members are local folks who want to have the best schools possible for
their children. Serving on a local
school board is a difficult and thankless job, and it is difficult to get good
people to run. But, too often, I have
seen the criticisms above play out in the states and/or communities where I
have lived. The issues and competition
we face today are too serious for these scenarios to continue.
Removing the influence of the
Federal government from K-12 education is a step back in time, and it will be a
disaster for improving public education in the United States.
