Opinion
Federal Opinion

Remember America’s Education Problem?

By Brian Crosby — November 03, 2008 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Who could have predicted that this year’s presidential election would have been overshadowed by the E-word: economy. Not too long ago, the domestic issue on most people’s minds was the other E-word: education. What a difference eight years make.

Back in 2000, both Vice President Al Gore and then-Gov. George W. Bush made education one of the top issues in the presidential campaign. The spotlight on improving schools was so intense that, less than two years later, the No Child Left Behind Act, with its tough accountability measures, was signed into law with great fanfare.

And ever since the federal law’s enactment, the country’s focus on education has waned. When President Bush ran for re-election against Sen. John Kerry in 2004, terrorism and war consumed the nation’s attention.

Hardly a question of substance about education surfaced in this year’s presidential debates.

Oh sure, Sen. John McCain has two pages on his Web site on the topic, and Sen. Barack Obama a more impressive 15 pages on his, but besides a routine stump speech here and there, no one is talking anymore about improving public schools.

With financial disaster all around, it’s understandable that education is no longer at the top of the list of domestic concerns. But why has it disappeared almost completely from the public’s radar?

Is it because schools are much better today, or that more students are achieving at higher levels, or that better teachers are in the classrooms? No, no, no.

The high school graduation rate of close to 70 percent has not changed in more than 30 years, despite all of the so-called school reforms.

There is still an incredible achievement gap between whites and minorities, with half of African-American and Latino students not graduating.

The No Child Left Behind law has given people a false sense of security that Washington has done its job. We want to feel good that the problem has been taken care of. NCLB provides a happy ending, sort of like the massive financial bailout Congress passed so that people don’t have to fret over an economy that still needs an extreme makeover. And the rest of us can go about our business consumed with Miley Cyrus’ sweet-16 birthday and which couple got voted off “Dancing with the Stars.”

With financial disaster all around, it’s understandable that education is no longer at the top of the list of domestic concerns. But why has it disappeared almost completely from the public’s radar?

Most economists agree that the real work of fixing the U.S. economy will begin after the bailout is completed. Most educators agree that the real work of transforming schools has yet to begin, with NCLB actually stalling reforms by, as of now, six years and counting.

The No Child Left Behind Act should have been the opening salvo in an ambitious effort to reform the public schools. Unfortunately, the law became the reform itself.

Right now, the American people are mad as hell about how Wall Street has collapsed. But shouldn’t there be a similar outrage about the millions of students who aren’t getting high school diplomas, dropping out at the rate of 3,000 a day? Certainly education reform deserves the same level of urgency that Congress paid to debating the fate of Terri Schiavo in 2005, when several politicians dropped everything they were doing in order to cast a vote regarding the fate of a single individual. For goodness’ sake, Detroit’s schools have a failure rate climbing toward 50 percent. People need to wake up, and rise up and say, “Enough is enough.”

If America intends to remain an economic force in the world, fixing our public schools must not be placed on the back burner. When a decade or two has passed and people look at the latest test results, will they scratch their heads and wonder why nothing has changed? Something has to change now. Otherwise, we’ll be going from a “nation at risk” to a “save America now” telethon.

The next president must put America’s schools back into their rightful place at the top of the public’s “to do” list. For the sake of a better future, the next bailout should be aimed at failing students.

A version of this article appeared in the October 29, 2008 edition of Education Week as Remember America’s Education Problem?

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Federal What Would Happen to K-12 in a 2nd Trump Term? A Detailed Policy Agenda Offers Clues
A conservative policy agenda could offer the clearest view yet of K-12 education in a second Trump term.
8 min read
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, March 9, 2024, in Rome Ga.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, March 9, 2024, in Rome, Ga. Allies of the former president have assembled a detailed policy agenda for every corner of the federal government with the idea that it would be ready for a conservative president to use at the start of a new term next year.
Mike Stewart/AP
Federal Opinion Student Literacy Rates Are Concerning. How Can We Turn This Around?
The ranking Republican senator on the education committee wants to hear from educators and families about making improvements.
6 min read
Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
Federal Biden Calls for Teacher Pay Raises, Expanded Pre-K in State of the Union
President Joe Biden highlighted a number of his education priorities in a high-stakes speech as he seeks a second term.
5 min read
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on March 7, 2024, in Washington.
Shawn Thew/Pool via AP
Federal Low-Performing Schools Are Left to Languish by Districts and States, Watchdog Finds
Fewer than half of district plans for improving struggling schools meet bare minimum requirements.
11 min read
A group of silhouettes looks across a grid with a public school on the other side.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva