There's been a lot of debate recently about the degree to which the feds can coerce states or school districts to do things they don't want to do (see here, here, and here, for example). Now there's some new empirical evidence that addresses the question. "Paying for Progress: Conditional Grants and the Desegregation of Southern Schools," written by Fordham Scholar Nora Gordon and her colleagues Elizabeth Cascio, Ethan Lewis, and Sarah Reber, goes back to the desegregation battles of the 1960s and finds, in essence, that the threat of withdrawing federal largesse can motivate districts to change policies. In this case, the more Title I aid a Southern school district received from Uncle Sam, the more likely it was to play ball. But there are some important caveats: first, the amount of desegregation experienced even in these districts was modest. And second, it took a lot of money to get districts to act--on average, $1,000 per pupil, which was 60% of the total per-pupil costs at the time.
What's the take-away for the current conversation around federal education policy? I think it's true that big-time formula funds such as Title I can be used as a club to force states and districts to act, but that strategy only works well when requirements are clear-cut. For example: test all students in grades 3-8 in reading and math. It's a lot harder when the mandate is fuzzy or complex, such as: turn around failing schools. And when we get into really controversial territory--say, introducing merit pay or experimenting with vouchers--we're better off making competitive grants available to jurisdictions that voluntarily sign up for the "free money," rather than forcing everyone to get on board. And, as with the desegregation experience, the dollar amounts have to be significant. Chicago Public Schools (and, more to the point, the Chicago Teachers Union) miraculously agreed to experiment with merit pay recently, but only because of a $27.5 million federal bribe, I mean grant.
