As predictable as the passage of time itself, December commentaries invariably offer reflections on the outgoing year. In a nod to that time-honored tradition, here’s my take on 2006.
This past year ushered in little that was fresh or innovative: high spending, ineffective legislation, and incremental policy shifts were all the educrats had to offer. Nationally, the federal education budget ballooned from $74 billion in 2005 to $88.9 billion in 2006.
The majority of the increase went to fund the No Child Left Behind Act, requiring states to establish standards and test students annually.
Higher spending failed to yield better results, however. NCLB’s implementation has been riddled with problems. In an acknowledgment of states’ rights, NCLB leaves states to develop their own standards. Some states have risen to the challenge and pushed for greater rigor. Unfortunately, other states — such as North Carolina — have chosen to “game” the system with weak content standards, thereby inflating academic performance and masking achievement gaps. Such a misalignment between state standards and federal accountability creates confusion categorizing schools, especially in states such as ours. While the federal government might target a school as “needing improvement,” North Carolina’s standards often indicate this same school is one of “excellence” or “distinction.”
At the state level, 2006 education spending reached its highest level ever. A total of $6.7 billion alone came from North Carolina’s budget, but that figure doesn’t include the millions of local dollars allocated for K-12 education by county budgets.
Although several counties experienced a massive boom in their student populations, the General Assembly refused to eliminate or raise the cap on charter schools. Legislative intractability on this matter is even more troubling, since the current legislative cap of 100 charter schools is already maxed out, leaving hundreds of children to languish on waiting lists while willing charter school applicants are shown the door.
But while students were left to contend with cramped classrooms and crowding, North Carolina teachers were shown the money. Thanks to Gov. Mike Easley, all public school teachers received an average 8 percent pay raise. It would have made better sense to reward consistently high-performing teachers rather than raising the pay of every good, bad, and mediocre teacher in the state.
North Carolina’s biggest education news story of 2006 involved revisions to the state math test. The Department of Public Instruction chose to shift its longstanding policy and administer a new math test aligned with recent curriculum revisions. Test results were disseminated in November after several inexplicable delays from the State Board of Education.
In hindsight, it’s clear that officials didn’t like what they saw and knew the public wouldn’t, either. Test scores were shockingly bad, with academic performance plummeting across the state. Only 64 schools earned top ratings, compared with 496 in 2005. In 2005, only four schools statewide were considered low-performing; in 2006, 52 schools earned this dubious distinction. Particularly concerning was the fact that racial-socioeconomic achievement gaps were much wider than expected: The majority of students who failed the new math standards were poor or minority students. Both Mecklenburg and Wake counties posted a whopping 39-percentage-point achievement gap between white students in grades three through eight and their black or low-income peers. There’s little justice to a system that promotes such a glaring stratification in achievement.
Education developments in 2006 confirmed what many of us have known all along: Public schools aren’t getting the job done, and more money isn’t fixing the problem. Instead, government education needs fundamental, systemic reforms, such as rigorous academic standards, merit pay for teachers, and competition through school choice. We at the Alliance will continue to fight the good fight. Join us in 2007.
Lindalyn Kakadelis is director of the North Carolina Education Alliance.