See Part II

Federal Teaching and Learning Policy as Rhetoric

Until No Child Left Behind, the federal government was rarely engaged in regulating the sale of k-12 products, services and programs to states and school districts. In addition, to the extent that the Department of Education was engaged in matters of teaching and learning, such as student standards of learning and performance, the regulation has been largely informal and, for all practical purposes, a matter of negotiation between sovereigns. The closest federal initiative to NCLB that your editor knows is the 1998 Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program. CSRDP required Title I schools to employ specific kinds of privately developed, research-based, teaching and learning programs school-wide, but left the definition of such programs to the states.

This is not to say that federal education policy has been primarily technical. Far from it, ideology has been no less important in the appointment of the Department of Education’s senior policy positions than the Departments of Defense or State. And for Republicans a good deal of effort has been expended, if not - as originally promised, to terminate the department, then to change a culture far more attuned to teachers unions and liberalism than conservative Christians and market libertarianism. In the process that became known as the (ongoing) "Education Wars," pedagogy became politicized to a point that labels like “whole language” became identified with liberal Democrats and “phonics” with “conservative Republicans.” But again, as a practical matter, while presidential elections may have changed the rhetoric coming from the Secretary of Education, the department's influence over states and districts decisions about teaching and learning extended no further than the bully pulpit.

Enter the Academic Consultant

Academics are no strangers to the concept of a conflict of interest. Professional publications intended to document advances in the state of the art of the various scientific disciplines focused on teaching and learning are reviewed by juries of academics with appropriate credentials and experience. To avoid favoritism authors and reviewers are not disclosed to each other, and members of the jury never review their own work. But in the context of providing advice to education agencies and writing textbooks, conflicts were not really a part of the academic consultant's world prior to No Child Left Behind.

The figure below places the academic advisor at an important crossroads of federal, state and local education policy; research into education; and the sale of products designed to facilitate teaching and learning.



Before the passage of No Child Left Behind, the academic consultant might advise the federal government on teaching and learning, and might even try to influence states and districts to move in a particular direction. It is likely that many "technical" advisors were chosen because their views of sound educational practice fit the political stance of the party in power. Regardless, the academic had no real influence over states or districts. The federal government played no meaningful role in the states or districts selection of textbooks or other materials. Instead of being viewed as a party with conflicting interests, the advisor was more likely to be seen as useful in smoothing out the-federal state dialogue.

Prior to NCLB, the academic consultant could also write textbooks for publishers while advising government on education issues without confronting any ethical dilemmas. The federal government played no role in the selection of these textbooks. The state textbook adoption process was not something an academic could easily influence behind the senses, and where textbooks are adopted by individual districts, no individual could influence enough buyers to justify a production run of their work. And with textbook publishing controlled by a few firms, no academic could ever do more than push sales of one textbook in one market segment a few points in one direction or the other.  

Next: Part (IV) - With NCLB Everything Changed, Yet Nothing Changed.