Introduction
Greater centralization at the state and federal levels of education is occurring for two primary reasons. One reason is the continuing poor performance of students across the United States on language, math, and science assessments in comparison with other industrialized nations. The second reason is, as always, money. Local governments simply cannot handle the burden of financing a comprehensive educational program for all students without contributions from the state and federal governments. Once these entities put their dollars into the educational pot, then they want to stir it.
Educational issues
First, the United States has not fared well on competitive measures of academics for many years. Since the epochal, A Nation at Risk report, released in 1987, the federal government has encroached more and more upon a function that the 10th amendment reserves to the states. As increased funding failed to bring up student test scores, the federal government began to focus on two main reasons for the low performances. Groups like the ACT and the National Science Teachers’ Association formed “national standards” for the core content areas. In the past ten years there has been a strong and united move by state departments of education to create, and in some cases, overhaul, existing standards of instruction to align with these national standards. These go by many different names in different states – standards of learning in Virginia, core content standards in Kentucky, for example – but it all comes down to the same thing. States, at the urging of the federal government, have “standardized” the courses, kindergarten through 12th grade, that are offered for credit in public schools. These sets of standards become the guide for teachers, the heart of the scope and sequence, and the criteria for criterion-referenced assessments which have replaced norm-referenced tests in many states. Generally, standards are “what a student should know and be able to do.”
Teaching to standards guarantees that all students have the opportunity to learn a basic, viable curriculum, regardless of the state they live in.
Additionally, this centralization of education has resulted in national teacher standards as well.
Research has always validated this truth – the classroom teacher is the single most important factor in student achievement. Unfortunately, teachers were often entering classrooms unprepared and ill-equipped to handle the diversity of learners there. To remedy the “teaching gap,” the U.S. Department of Education created national standards for teaching effectiveness. Teachers may earn the coveted “national certification” label by completing course work, portfolio evidence, and classroom experience making them marketable in almost all states. With the advent of the Internet and online courses, teachers find it easier to earn post-graduate credits in education by completing work in educational programs that are homogenized to fit any state department of education’s criteria for a Masters’s in Education.
The second primary reason for increased federal control of education comes down, as always, to money.
Beginning with subsidized school lunch programs to aid handicapped students, the federal government has assisted local education agencies in covering the huge costs of running a school district. Just a quick listing of the areas in which the federal government puts funds evidences how much the federal finger is in the proverbial pie. Special education, bus transportation, gender equity programs, minority educational opportunities, equity for the low socio-economic groups (many of these begin with the word “Title” and a Roman numeral or two behind them) effectively ended local control. Federal guidelines, regulations, paperwork requirements, employment requirements all abound in the running of a “local” school system. In return for their financial contributions, the federal and state governments expect local districts to tow a line designed to provide equity of opportunity to all students. Without federal dollars, many school districts would be wiped out by the enrollment of single special needs students, for instance, an autistic child, whose costs to educate are enormous.
Finally, both the influx of federal dollars and the standardization of curriculum have combined to result in No Child Left Behind. Based on state-administered assessments, local education agencies must meet target goals and data to stay in line with this federal education law. The problem has arisen, however, in the widely varying degrees of “proficiency” that states claim students have met on these assessments to stay off the “failing” or “crisis” lists mandated by NCLB. What is considered “proficient” in Tennessee is very different (much lower) than what is considered “proficient” in New York. This begs the question – when will the federal government set the standards for proficiency to guarantee that all students are held to the same accountability level?
Conclusion
The 10th amendment still applies to state and local control of education in very few ways. As our population has become more diverse, and our nation has committed to a fair and equitable education for all children, regardless of ability, socio-economic status, race, citizenship, gender, or aptitude, the heavy hand of the federal government has closed around and squeezed out state and local control.