Checker writes on EducationNext's blog today about the inability of Title I and various versions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to bring about achievement gains for all students.
If Secretary Duncan is serious about ???????listening??????? to ideas for the next ESEA reauthorization (aka ???????fixing what's wrong with NCLB???????), he would do well to start with the important and depressing book by David K. Cohen & Susan L. Moffitt, The Ordeal of Equality: Did Federal Regulation Fix the Schools? ..... Though they attribute modest achievement gains to Title I dollars, focus, and encouragement over the 44 years since LBJ persuaded Congress to authorize this funding stream, they mainly demonstrate the failure????????nay, the futility????????of efforts to turn this flow of dollars into an engine of school transformation and educational renewal.