Michael Gerson sees that the education bill passed by Congress is a retreat from the large federal role envisioned by the No Child Left Behind Act–and he’s not happy about it. He thinks it’s terrible that some states and localities will be able to continue to fail black students without the federal government’s doing anything about it. What he doesn’t grapple with is whether NCLB has been effective at improving education for these students. Has the strategy of using the federal government’s small share of education dollars to force states to undertake serious reform worked? Do we have reason to think that it would work in the future if we found a way to get Congress to redouble federal efforts? I tend to think that the answer to both questions is no: Whether or not we think the schools are the federal government’s business, it doesn’t have the capacity to fix them. The new bill is an advance for realism.
Which is not to say that there is nothing the federal government can do for disadvantaged students. A lot of federal education dollars are supposed to help school districts educate poor children. Why not let that money go to the educational institution that their parents choose–be it a charter school, a private school, or a traditional public school? Instead of trying to make schools more accountable to the Education Department, that is, make them more accountable to parents.
Update: Frederick Hess argues that the new education law does a decent job of distinguishing between what the federal government can and can’t achieve.