Editor's note: This post appears in response to Michael J. Petrilli and Frederick M. Hess's earlier article.
I was appalled to read the attack of Jonah Edelman by my colleagues Mike Petrilli and Rick Hess for supposedly playing the “race card” on the ESEA reauthorization in his recent Daily Beast column. Hey guys, why the cheap shot? Jonah was citing historical facts that even today’s schoolchildren study. He talks mostly about groups of disadvantaged students, particularly those living in poverty, and uses the term “racism” once. And if you knew Jonah and each of his parents as I do, you would know that Jonah’s views have evolved way past his parents’ views from different times.
I won’t argue the strengths and weaknesses of NCLB. They both exist and are being vigorously debated. But to assert that states will do the right thing flies in the face of many current practices nationwide, not just history. How can Rick and Mike deny that most states have been insensitive to inequity in schooling and elsewhere? There is ample documentation that states choose to fund high-poverty schools at lesser rates than low-poverty schools, unlike most every other advanced country. Or that high-poverty schools have weaker teachers. And so on. And then there are other current state actions that reinforce disadvantages for undereducated and low-income people like the voter suppression actions being pursued in many states.
Maybe the federal government cannot do much in our grossly decentralized education governance system, but the use of the bully pulpit, legislative and regulatory actions, and civil rights enforcement by the Bush and Obama administrations have triggered state and local changes that would not have happened otherwise—attention to identifying and assisting the lowest-performing schools and student groups and meaningful teacher evaluation, to name two. Yes, there are implementation problems with both, and states need to show leadership in solving them. But to basically assert that states would have focused attention on them without a federal push is grossly naïve and plain wrong.
Maybe the final irony is that Jonah Edelman does not even work at the federal level. He leads Stand for Children, an education-advocacy group with chapters in several states. He is doing just what Mike and Rick want, i.e., pushing for state leadership in addressing the many education challenges of low-income and minority students.
Cynthia G. Brown is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.