RTTT is the "Carrot That Feels Like a Stick," says Mike Petrilli (of all people). He "can’t help but feel remorse for the death of federalism."

As I prepare for a talk at DePaul University tomorrow, I’m racing (ha!) to review the assessment program of Race to the Top. After having vented yesterday, several things stand out as politically significant in the assessment competition.

It is key to understand that the content of Race to the Top is bribery. While in the past the main criticism from various quarters was that much of NCLB’s testing requirements were “unfunded mandates;” today they are funded, but in an even more coercive way. Those who do the bidding of Obama, Duncan and a host of venture philanthropists, will receive tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. This itself is significant, for as I’ve noted before, bribery as a method signifies illegitimacy: “The use of the public treasury to bribe educators is an open admission that the path being imposed by the ruling elite cannot be justified” — that is, it is against prevailing public opinion. Despite all the talk about putting children first, kids do not want more testing, they are not craving to have their entire academic experience converted to numbers and letters in some federal database (as RTTT appears to aim to create), nor are they demanding teachers who only spend a few weeks preparing to enter the classroom, high on a mission inspired by the White Man’s Burden. Nor are children and youth narrowly interested in education for a career. So, as is often the case, things are not what they seem. The irrationality of the project requires that its political functions be explored. Eligibility requirements for receiving the competitive grants are a good place to begin.

An Analysis of Select Requirements

To be eligable for the Comprehensive Assessment System (the first assessment competition), the Executive Summary states:

Eligible applicants are consortia of States. To be eligible to receive an award under this category, an eligible applicant must—1. Include a minimum of 15 States, of which at least 5 States must be governing States (as defined in the NIA); 2. Identify in its application a proposed project management partner and provide an assurance that the proposed project management partner is not partnered with any other eligible applicant applying for an award under this category; and; 3. Submit assurances from each State in the consortium that, to remain in the consortium, the State will adopt a common set of college- and career-ready standards…

It will be important to thoroughly explore the degree to which this arrangement has precedent, but there are, it appears, some significant breaks with past practice. Unlike national associations like the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) — which is nonetheless playing an important role in creating national standards — RTTT requires placing some states as “governing” over others and require states in the consortia to sign “assurances” of compliance with the governing state and executive demands at the federal level to receive funding. Whereas CCSSO and possibly other associations are framed as advocacy organizations, this arrangement appears to create new governance structures. It appears to structure a new form of political inequality among states as well.

So what of these new governance structures? First, it is important to take seriously the use of the word consortium. Similar to the increasingly used concept of partnership, consortium is typically understood as “an association, typically of several business companies.” The social and political arrangement in which this makes sense is typically understood as belonging to the private realm of private enterprise, or that of “civil society” in the form of a professional association or “non-governmental agency” — as distinct from the state. But here we have the federal apparatus, under the direction of an executive, and not the law making body, forming through the use of bribes governing structures that do not obviously conform to the U.S. constitution or even state constitutions. What are we to make of a group of states forming a governing alliance that controls curricular content and standards for assessment whether teachers are teaching and students are learning that content, under the direction of executive bodies of the federal government? Will such alliances compete with each other? Will there be a Confederate consortium?

In the Federal Register notice, we find this interesting option:

Application Requirements: An eligible applicant’s application must—1. Indicate, consistent with 34 CFR 75.128, whether—(a) One member of the consortium is applying for a grant on behalf of the consortium; or (b) The consortium has established itself as a separate eligible legal entity and is applying for a grant on its own behalf; 2. Be signed by—(a) If one member of the consortium is applying for a grant on behalf of the consortium, the Governor, the State’s chief school officer, and, if applicable, the president of the State board of education from that State; or (b) If the consortium has established itself as a separate eligible legal entity and is applying for a grant on its own behalf, a representative of the consortium.

It is completely unclear, albeit on its face significant, what it means to allow for states to form a consortium that “has established itself as a separate eligible legal entity.” Such as a private corporation or non-for-profit institution?

Second, what might be most significant about this arrangement is not that it violates states rights (presumably the out for the Obama administration here is that Duncan is not actually forcing any state to apply for these grants) but rather that it restructures executive authority by creating “partnerships” between associations of states that relate as single entities to federal bodies, where these consortia appear to be de-linked both from federal and state law making bodies.

A related criteria for winning the competition is the role given to public institutions of higher education (IHEs). The Summary explains:

The Department gives eligible applicants competitive preference points based on the extent to which they have promoted collaboration and alignment between member States’ public elementary and secondary education systems and their public IHEs…Eligible applicants addressing this priority must provide, for each IHE or IHE system, a letter of intent that—(a) Commits the IHE or IHE system to participate with the consortium in the design and development of the consortium’s final high school summative assessments in mathematics and English language arts in order to ensure that the assessments measure college readiness; (b) Commits the IHE or IHE system to implement policies, once the final high school summative assessments are implemented, that exempt from remedial courses and place into credit-bearing college courses any student who meets the consortium-adopted achievement standard (as defined in the NIA) for each assessment and any other placement requirement established by the IHE or IHE system; and (c) Is signed by the State’s higher education executive officer (if the State has one) and the president or head of each participating IHE or IHE system.

This arrangement appears to have the effect of brining state public education systems under a governing apparatus of consortia of states — neither at the state level nor the federal level — that, in turn, interacts with the federal department of education. Of course, there is much to say about this — the implication of mandating the elimination of remedial courses for example — but that is for another time.

Another feature that suggests significant restructuring of executive power is this requirement stipulated under Consortium Governance. It notes that the “terms and conditions of the Memoranda of Understanding or other binding agreements executed by each member State” must include the “State’s commitment to and plan for identifying any existing barriers in State law, statute, regulation, or policy to implementing the proposed assessment system and to addressing any such barriers prior to full implementation of the summative assessment components of the system.”

Like Race to the Top requirements that bribe states into rewriting their laws — the most notable examples being the removal of caps on charter schools and rules limiting the use of test data for teacher evaluation purposes — this places executive bodies in a quasi-law making role. Along with venture philanthropy and other monopolies, governors and some legislatures are demanding changes to state law to increase state chances for winning Race to the Top funds. While a key point here is the clear focus on emasculating teachers unions and the spreading of massive disinformation about “putting kids first”, the point here is that this structure creates a new governing mechanism, neither at the level of state, nor clearly at the federal level; in some ways, it is not clear that the consortia to be formed are fully public in nature (e.g., a consortium that “established itself as a separate eligible legal entity”). It is important to understand that these changes are enabled by the ARRA, the result of the crimes of Wall Street (while some banks are “too big to fail” public institutions of historic proportion, such as public schools and universities, are being forced to fail).

Another clue that suggests limited public status for these governing structures is the manner in which RTTT insists on technical standards that are, generally speaking, open source or cross platform, while maintaining test secrecy. This ensures the public continues to be blocked from access to test content. Again the notice in the Federal Register is more helpful. It states:

In addition, we are requiring that eligible applicants receiving awards under either category in this competition develop assessment items and produce student data in a manner that is consistent with standards for interoperability, and that they make all assessment content (i.e., assessments and assessment items) developed with funds from this competition freely available to States, technology platform providers, or others that request it for purposes of administering assessments, consistent with States’ needs and with consortium or State requirements for test or item security.

Suggesting that public dollars are again being used to develop technology latter utilized by private entities, the notice reads:

We believe that these requirements will ensure that assessment content developed with funds from this competition is widely available, including to States that are not part of consortia receiving funds under this competition as well as to commercial organizations wishing to further develop, extend, and incorporate the content into assessment products intended for State use. Moreover, we believe that making assessment content freely available will spur innovation in assessment technology and enable technology providers to compete for States’ business on the basis of their developing efficient, effective, economical, and innovative assessment platforms.

It does not appear than that the issue is simply one of state’s rights and the death of federalism. Rather, it appears the very nature and scope of executive power is changing, and working to further distance governance from the public and its will.

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Nussbaum begins by warning of a crisis in education, a crisis rooted in the quest for national profit or economic gain (interestingly enough this point is made without reference to the dramatic increase in the rise of for-profit providers of higher education and the concomitant adoption of an outlook predicated on education being a service and students consumers). She writes:

Radical changes are occurring in what democratic societies teach the young, and these changes have not been well thought through. Thirsty for national profit, nations and their systems of education are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive. If this trend continues, all over the world we will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements. The future of the world’s democracies hangs in the balance.

What is most interesting about this line of argument is its assumption that “citizens who can think for themselves” (what about resident “aliens”?), the “ability” to “criticize tradition” and “understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements”, are all skills. Is thinking a skill? Is empathy a skill?

Examining the Oxford English Dictionary, one will find that the noun skill has two distinct meanings, and I think the difference is quite significant. The first meaning listed is essentially grounded in the notion of reason, or discernment and differentiation (and given as a mental faculty of individuals, whereas now there is evidence that thinking is a social, not simply psychological, phenomenon). The second meaning moves us into the moral realm: “That which is reasonable, proper, right, or just.”

The “business community’s” emphasis on education for the development of skills suggests, at first glance, a set of functional capacities (e.g., STEM) tightly aligned with what finance capital says the market can bear and national security deems worthy (e.g., learning Arabic). Yet, it is clear to me that since the days of the development of civil service exams in China and then in the west, a composite notion of skill has pervaded our thinking, both causing confusion and covering over important developments. This confusion reigns in Nussbaum’s essay and is worth further exploration.

She writes: “Indeed, what we might call the humanistic aspects of science and social science—the imaginative, creative aspect, and the aspect of rigorous critical thought—are also losing ground.”

While the word rigorous is almost as hackneyed and misused as the word accountability (rigorous is of course derived from the notion of being inflexible, as when one dies their body becomes rigid, something I hope most can recognize as not being synonymous with notions like “advanced”), what is particularly troubling is the incessant habit of placing adjectives before words in such a manner as to reveal that the writer does not understand them. So an example is “critical thinking.” I’m just not convinced that thinking is a phenomenon that comes in varieties, such that one type of thinking is “critical” and another type is “uncritical”. I’m serious; if we don’t stop this irrationalism, we’re going to soon be offering undergraduates “uncritical thinking” as a prerequisite for courses in “critical thinking”. This reminds me of proponents of “brain-based learning,” as if we were confused as to the organ largely responsible for learning! I’m going to develop the Institute for Foot-based Learning, following in the footsteps (!) of the peripatetic philosophers of ancient Athens.

So back to the problems of skills-as-values. Anyway, what is significant about the designation of some thinking as critical is that it appears to cross over into a moral or values positions (critical means to render negative judgment), beyond any empirically based analysis of forms or types of thinking. That is to say, the kind of thinking that “critical thinking” targets is thinking that is judgmental, opinionated, and so on, and thus, the notion confuses the value and the form of the process and product of thinking. Nussbaum continues:

Given that economic growth is so eagerly sought by all nations, especially at this time of crisis, too few questions have been posed about the direction of education, and, with it, of the world’s democratic societies. With the rush to profitability in the global market, values precious for the future of democracy are in danger of getting lost.

So here we have an assumed linkage of the above mentioned skills to a set of values, which I don’t think is an accident nor a problem unique to this author’s point of view. She continues in the following paragraph thusly:

The profit motive suggests to many concerned leaders that science and technology are of crucial importance for the future health of their nations. We should have no objection to good scientific and technical education. My concern is that other abilities, equally crucial, are at risk of getting lost in the competitive flurry, abilities crucial to the health of any democracy internally, and to the creation of a world culture capable of tackling the world’s most pressing problems.

Wait! I though we were talking about the skills associated with a liberal-arts education, skills that help foster democratic governance? Yes, ability is commonly referenced by thesauruses as a synonym for skill, but is it? Ability, according the OED, is particularly focused on the notion of suitability relative to a particular purpose, or as the quality making some action possible. So, let me pull what I think is a very important observation from my book:

Sociologists point out that there have always been arrangements for formally recognizing the capacity to perform important social roles and to exercise their associated social status and power… Notice that there are in fact two capacities referenced here. The first is the capacity to perform the role itself (functional competency), and the second capacity is to exercise the role’s associated social status and power (what might be called social competency). Notions of ability, of capacity, are bound up with social roles, for ability must have a place for it to be manifest. This quality or state of being able manifests itself in the “physical, mental, or legal power to perform,” according to Webster’s. Note that ability can signify a power inhering in persons—again functional capacity—or a legal power to do something, or social capacity. It is significant, I think, that the etymology of ability is from the Middle English, suitability. In this regard, standardized test-based assessment is the judgment of worth relative to a structural slot or social position—what is deemed of value and who is deemed of value—a process abstracted as achievement or ability.

It is this dual meaning of skill and ability that must be sorted out. In the same breath, we talk about functional capacities and social capacities. In the present circumstance this leads to, among other things, blaming average individuals for what are in reality structural problems, which are covered over by those relatively few individuals who benefit from these structural arrangements.

And of course, educational institutions have been implicated in this social structuring, and the interesting fact is that “liberal arts” education was reserved for those slotted for positions afforded “social status and power”; as access to education was broadened, and the right to vote extended, more limited forms of liberal education were afforded the “masses.” “Liberal education” was the vision so graciously extended to the “masses” by enlightened bourgeois reformers and while progressive in its day and responsible for many positive developments, it imposed the limits of a bourgeois outlook (e.g., “learning is for its own sake”). It cannot move us into the future. It confounded our understanding of skills, abilities and values, and brought with it the view that education was an appropriate means for defending the ranking of humanity, thus not only distorting our understanding of the origin of extant social inequality, but also distorting the process and outcome of education by tightly aligning its acquisition with social rank.

It is thus my (admittedly underdeveloped) thesis that the current emphasis on “skills” is in fact an assignment of lower social value to a larger section of the population than has been practiced in the recent past; the problem is not that the “skills” necessary for democracy are not being “taught”, but rather that what little democracy existed prior to the current push for “accountability” is being eliminated by the reduction of education to “skills development” under the hoax of economic development.

The political arrangement that housed “liberal arts” as an educational form no longer holds sway. Put in a different manner, the aim of the emphasis on skills is not — at the macro level — in the main economically driven, but a political necessity given the extreme concentration of power and complete failure of the current political system to provide people even a modicum of say over their government and the direction of society. In vogue notions of skills are confused with notions of values, and are thus quite complex. The notion of “critical thinking” is not a banner behind which educators should readily line up in the dire hope that by adopting the business-talk of skills somehow a broad and enlightened form of education can be defended and supported.

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But the English language does not help the discussion of measurement, as measure can signify both a standard and the process of applying a standard for the purpose of measurement, assessment or comparison. Not all applications of standards produce measurements. Applications of legal standards do not yield measurements of criminality. So, to say that a test is the best available measure may be true if by measure one means the prediction of some performance. But prediction and measurement are not the same thing. Measurement is a very specific thing, a claim that a mathematical system corresponds with the phenomenon of interest. This is the criteria of being isomorphic. Standardized tests do not meet that criteria. And, they do not identify a precise object of measurement. Thus, claiming that one must have real knowledge of mathematics to perform “well” (high rank performance) on some math test is not the same as the claim that the math test produces a measurement of math ability. Of course one must have some related skills and general intellectual development to engage with the test in a way society renders valuable. But the outcome of that exercise does not constitute a measurement.

In the course of the discussion, it was argued that test scores are at least measures of test taking ability. My claim is that tests currently in use do not meet the criteria of measurement, and that this fact is hidden, covered over, but in reality, known to psychometricians. My claim is that these tests do not produce measurements of any kind (Walt Haney tried to convince me that they are “weak” measures, which created new problems). This is why I go to great lengths to distinguish between assessment and measurement. Standardized tests are obviously tools for making assessments. They’re just not measurements, and my claim is that this distinction is very significant.

I suppose that part of what is troubling about my argument is my strict use of the word measurement. So, for example, I would agree that a score on a standardized test is a “useful indicator” of how proficient a person is at taking standardized tests in general, but I would object to someone calling that score a measurement of test-taking ability. Creating an indices, Likert scale, etc., with the aid of numbers, may provide “useful” information, and even allow that information to be treated statistically (75% of Americans are opposed to the Iraq war) but the mere assignment of numbers to something in this manner does not in itself constitute measurement. Again, I maintain that the distinction is significant; it is significant that politicians and policy experts routinely call things measurements when the results do not meet the criteria of measurement.

The claim to measurement is made because it enables one to make claims about the origin of social trends. During the rise of intelligence testing, the claim that intelligence was being measured (even though it was known to be a mere classification) enabled reformers to link school performance to what they postulated as variation in intellectual ability (and not ineffective teaching, instruction in a language not spoken by students, or a vapid curriculum). Today, the claim to measurement is required to argue that “teaching ability” or “teaching effectiveness” is the cause of various social trends. No serious scientist believes that student performance on any academic test constitutes a measurement of teaching effectiveness. And, today, even though it is well established that is “normal” for individuals to vary in their rate and depth of learning any content or skill, the useless slogan “all children can learn” is shouted by reformers as if it represents the noblest aspirations of humanity. Even if social inequality were drastically reduced, individual (not group) performance on any valued task — intellectual, social, physical — would vary widely (and this in and of itself is not a social problem).

Finally, as seems to be common when anyone presents a challenge to standardized testing, critics are imputed with the aim of “throwing out the tests.” My book is quite clear that eliminating standardized testing as we know it — while leaving all else intact — would do little good and produce more harm. But blocking the use of high stakes tests would be a positive move. And as for being pegged an anti-tester, I’m the only one (I think) to critique the critics who say standardization is “bad”; again, my aim is to analyze these concepts and structures as they are rooted in definite social and political systems. Standardization in political terms is an advance, and part of the progressive notion of equality. In fact, the tendency now is to undermine, blow off, and ignore standard psychometric procedure (reliability, validity, etc.) and this is destructive and reflective of the larger trend of those in positions of power to act with impunity. As Gene Glass notes, most states don’t even produce the most basic test validation data.

But the actual point is that the standards adopted by a social system change as the system changes; the point is that this is a political fight, and that the fight over standards is political. By political I do not meant to narrowly refer to political parties, but rather I refer to the process by which a society decides who gets what, when, where, and how. Educators can’t wish away this political feature of standards. It is an argument that ultimately says that in order to address the flaws of standardized testing and policy that relies on testing, you have to address the major flaws of the present social system that are reflected in those tools and policies. The failure of “authentic assessment” is as much a political failure as a technical one.

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One of the underlying tensions of this reform revolves around central tenets of the U.S. system of governance: federalism. The question posed by the framers of the constitution was how to secure national interest without tyranny; how to share power without diluting it; how to avoid civil war among those being “federated.” Underlying the current efforts is a dramatic increase in the role and power of the federal government, especially the power unelected executive branches now exert over state and local education systems. Sometimes explicit, other times implicit, the debate is rendered as one of defending the constitutional status quo — states rights, local control, etc. — or the need to move beyond partisan politics, that this is “for the children” and is not in any way altering who is in control. In pushing for national standards, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reportedly told state Governors: “some people may claim that a commonly created test is a threat to state control — but let’s remember who is in charge. You are. You will create these tests. You will drive the process. You will call the shots.”

So where should one stand? The experience of history yields the following conclusion: neither the past system of “local control” (and its role in defending crimes of segregation and inequalities of wealth) nor the present drive for “innovaation” in the form of “national standards,” “pay-for-performance,” “alternative certification,” and “high quality assessments” along, with a certain kind of “choice,” will serve the interests of the people as a whole.

In contending with how to move forward, what stands to take, it is important to understand that the drive for broad, universal education in the United States was very much influenced by African Americans and workers generally, beginning after the Civil War. The system that emerged was the result of a fight, one that has been continuously waged, between factions and classes over the form and function of eduation. Universal education under their auspices required no admissions tests, no fees or tuition, no “agreement” to accept draconian test-prep methods and humiliation as a basis for enrollment, no rejection of students with special needs. Most important from the point of view of the present is that this model did not adopt the notion of competition as its underlying principal. It was driven by the demand of enlightened humanity, against slavery and all forms of oppression. It was premised on the conclusion that education is a basic human right, with society responsible to ensure its universal provision as a condition for individuals and collectives to fulfill their social responsibility to society. This broad education was a key element in the vision for the advance of humanity that emerged with the end of legal slavery in the United States.

Among conditions of forced illiteracy, education activists of that time and on to the civil rights movement of the 20th century demanded an education far beyond “literacy” and “work readiness” (the limits now imposed by todays “leaders” so that they can profit from global competition). Demands for culture, political decision making and philosophy stood behind practical efforts to raise the educational levels of entire communities in record time following the civil war (whose progress was blocked from further advance by the state-organized racist gangs such as the KKK and the post-Civil War arrangements of legal segregation).

This lesson of history is that if education is to serve the public interest — is to serve the society — the people themselves must set the standards designed to govern the content and form public education is to take. That Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is outrightly bribing states and local school districts into accepting the corporate agenda for schooling by awarding federal funds to only those who comply with this agenda is itself a frank admission that the direction he is driving education is against the public will and the public interest. It is illegitimate as bribery is not a modern basis for securing the consent.

Parents, teachers, families and entire communities reject the vision handed down to them by these “reformers” that says the highest aspiration served by education is that of getting a job or being “ready” for “college” — itself now reduced to more job training. Such a standards smacks of arrangements before the Civil War, where extensive education was reserved only for the rich, with the masses receiving only that which the rich deemed necessary for them to function as workers and slaves.

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What would have been unimaginable even ten years ago is now taking place: the U.S. educational system is poised to break with one of its politically unique and defining features: state control over public education.

Because education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, article X applies: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

It is clear from the above comments, and many others like them, that there is consciousness that these standards (whatever name is pragmatically assigned) are part and parcel of larger changes to governing arrangements more generally. Supporters of the “common standards” have belittled objections citing article X. The compromise of state’s rights during the founding of the U.S. is now seen as a block by the most powerful reformers. Below I offer a heuristic for contending with the push for national standards.

The Nature and Function of Standards

Among other things, standards in any sphere of social life play an important role in establishing, maintaining or even expanding the power of an authority, its interests, and outlook. To determine standards is a claim to have authority over a sphere of social life. Struggles over standards are often expressions of broader political rivalries, either between sections of a ruling class and/or between the social classes. Disputes over standards are one means by which conflicting claims (of classes or factions) can be sorted out. Finally, the act of establishing a standard not only serves to empower the actor, it also stands as an effort by that actor to legitimate future claims to govern over the domain of which the standard is applied. Finally, the failure to establish a standard, the failure to secure compliance with a standard, signifies failure of the authority the standard represents.

The Public Good

If nothing else, the notion of public good is that of the common interest, and is defined through contrast with narrow and sectarian interests. Bourgeois political thinkers in the West understood that capitalism gave rise to factions in society because of the inevitability of inequality as a result of the private pursuit of property. While rejecting the principal of socialized property that is the logical extension of the public good, bourgeois thinkers nonetheless understood that factions unchecked lead to unstable forms of government and ultimately civil war. But they rejected tyranny of one faction over all others as a resolution to this problem. Thus was established in the U.S. a system of power sharing between states that make up the union and stood as means for forming the national political will.

Standards Set by Narrow Political Factions Cannot Serve the Public Good

The standard setting now taking place necessarily reflects the aims, objectives, and outlook of those who set them, and serves their interests. The public and rank and file educators, and their concerns, have been excluded from setting these standards. How can the public good be served if the people who are the object of the standards are not key agents of their creation?

What aims do the standards being proposed reflect? Global competition is often given as a justification, and it should be readily evident that this is not an aim derived from the concrete conditions or desires of the majority in the United States but rather it is an aim derived from the preoccupation of a tiny minority of financial and industrial interests. Workers in the United States have in no way benefited from competing with other workers in other countries, as their material and social conditions continue to deteriorate while the biggest financial, commercial and industrial giants make record profits — often at the expense of workers whom are deemed to “out compete” “America”.

Far from “offering the best possible education” to all Americans, such an approach lowers the level of education and is even worse than job training. It is an outlook that uses education to place venture capital at the center and the only legitimate arbiter of the progress of public schools. Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Ford Foundation and all the Wall Street players do not have the right to decide for the public the future of education!

Without serious discussion by the public and among the public of the aim and purpose of education, no meaningful standards that serve the public good can be developed or adjudicated.

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Today represents a milestone, though, for a potential breakthrough that could have major implications for higher education. The Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association will release common standards for core curriculums in mathematics and reading and writing that, because of a confluence of events, could create a set of widely embraced national (but not federal) standards for what high school students need to know to be “college ready” or to have the skills to enter the work force.

So, what is the difference between “Federal” and “National” Standards? I suggest that federal is used here to point to administrative oversight and power, and as such, “federal standards” as a phrase is avoided because it points to worries that federal education policy increasingly violates state rights, as the provision and administration of education is given, due to its absence in the U.S. constitution, as a state right by article X .

Supporters of the “common standards” have belittled objections citing article X. This suggests how uncomfortable “reformers” are with current constitutional arrangements — i.e., that the compromise of state’s rights during the founding of the U.S. is now seen as a key block by the most powerful reformers. It also suggests what “National Standards” means in terms of political justification. That is, “national” here refers to an interest, in the same way that “national security” refers to an interest that is not limited to an administrative structure (federal, state or local) but rather to the promotion and protection of an interest. Examination of the interests of those driving the “core standards” and the general absence of “real” educators in the formation of the standards (despite efforts to make the process appear “inclusive”) is key to understanding the emphasis on “national” vs. “federal” in discussions of “core standards.” It also points to the role of standard-setting in altering governing arrangements.

As a starting point for thinking more about the political significance of “National Standards”, I offer the following from Witold Kula’s 1986 book Measures and Men:

The right to determine measures is an attribute of authority in all advanced societies. It is the prerogative of the ruler to make measures mandatory and to retain the custody of the standards […] The controlling authority, moreover, seeks to unify all measures within its territory and claim the right to punish metrological transgressions. (p. 18)

He further notes that the “frequent struggles centered about metrological competence of the constituted power are but a manifestation of the rivalry between various organs of authority aspiring to control measures in order to bolster their standing,” emphasizing that “attempts to control measures [standards] have been an ever-present element in the struggle for power between interested representatives of the privileged class” (18-19).

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Yet recent reports point to the complexity of this trend. One example involves efforts of teachers to unionize at an Illinois non-for-profit charter school, who in turn hires for-profit EMOs to run some of their campuses. In response to the formation of the union, the charter company claims they are “private” when it comes to employment law. Thus the rules of the NLRB, as opposed to state law regulating public sector unions, apply. NLRB regulations mandate a formal vote among teachers, and not just completed union cards. The election would delay union formation and provide a chance for the company to “persuade” teachers not to unionize.

Another example is found in higher education. Recent reports in the Chronicle of Higher Education point to open discussions among state legislatures, higher education executives and various think tanks about “loosening the bonds between state governments and public colleges to save money and give colleges the freedom to bolster their bottom lines in new ways.”

These examples are of interest because they highlight crossing the public/private division as a strategy used by both private and public entities to either secure or expand their position.

In the first case above, public funds are given to a private company, who wishes to be treated as a public or private entity depending on the circumstances of its choosing. It wishes to receive the benefit of public finance, but rejects public oversight as a hindrance, in this case, in the regulations of public sector unions. This feature of adopting different standards for different purposes harkens back to the feudal practice of adopting different weights and measures for buying and selling, a practice which invariably favored lords and became a symbol of arbitrary power during the period leading up to the French revolution. Standards were often the property of the reigning lord, and in that sense, privately controlled. This private control over something that so greatly affected the extant public was soon to be rejected, and this rejection of arbitrary power was fostered by the emergence of a public sphere and a self-conscious public outside the subjectivity of kings, etc.

Yet, in the second case above, public status is to be reduced as state funding is reduced: states issue budget cuts and students attending public higher education are forced to pay not only more, but also a higher percentage of the total operating cost. Privatization here is generally equated with downloading the responsibility for funding education onto individuals and their families. To “save money” and “bolster the bottom line” public higher education must break bonds with state governments, and move toward becoming private institutions, so the argument goes.

Thus, much of the debate about privatization is rendered as economic in nature. Evidence of this exists in the fixation on the economic category of efficiency, of which private, for-profit firms are unquestioningly presented as the model; talk of “the bottom line,” and other for-profit imperatives dominate the discussion.

Yet, what is significant is the confused standard for determining public or private status: institutions that receive public funds are somehow more public than those that do not. Yet, in the past, public funding was directly linked to public control. On the other hand, there is the present trend to break in thinking and practice any assumption that with a transfer of public funds, an organization is to admit public oversight.

Many things that are in fact against the public interest (such as aggressive wars or handouts to fraudulent banks) are accepted nonetheless as public because they are actions of the government, carried out with public funds. So the existence of public funds itself cannot be the criteria of what is public.

The division between public and private has historically centered on justifying who decides what in a specific context; who has what rights, both in terms of limiting the power of state, but also in terms of claims of individuals. The claim individuals have to education is premised on education being a requirement, necessary for the public well being. In order for the public/private distinction to have meaning and be able to provide coherence to discussions about education and society a standard is required that does not rely on the source of funds nor the status of government or non-government.

This standard must begin by elaborating and renewing the conception of the public good or well being. What is at stake in the current move to privatize education is not simply the increased burden for individuals or instigation of more inequality through more “choice”. What is at stake is a sharp political shift, where demarcations of private or even not-for-profit (yet private) are used to eschew public oversight of that which broadly concerns all, standing against public opinion.

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“If folks are playing shell games, if folks are operating in bad faith, it puts their second chance at billions of dollars in jeopardy,” he said. “We have significant carrots and sticks.” — Arne Duncan, April 15, Chicago Tribute.

In a April 1, Washington Post interview, under the banner of “New Voices of Power,” staff writer Lois Romano queries Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: “So you have all this money, but, in a sense, aren’t you a little bit powerless because, in the end, the States are going to decide how to spend the money?”

Duncan: “Well, we’re going to work very, very closely with those states, and we’ve given out–we will give out over the next couple weeks billions of dollars, but we’re going to keep billions of dollars here to really watch and monitor how states do in terms of implementing these reforms.”

“Secondly, there’s unprecedented discretionary dollars, a $5-billion Race to the Top Fund where we’re going to work exclusively with those states and those districts that are really willing to challenge the status quo and get dramatically better.”

“So we’ve never had greater resources, more carrots, but also some sticks to make sure that we’re doing the right thing by children around the country.”

Lois Romano: “You talked about carrots and sticks. What are your sticks going to be?”

Duncan: “Well, again, if states aren’t doing the right thing with the stimulus package, basically they’re going to disqualify themselves from even competing for the Race to the Top Fund, and so there’s a huge financial incentive.”

During a March 24 interview with Education Week reporters Alyson Klein, Michele McNeil, and Stephen Sawchuk, Secretary Duncan was asked the following question: “Would you ever ask for money back if you found that states didn’t use it in the way you think was intended?”

Duncan: “We want to be very, very clear: If things are not going the way we like, we are going to challenge that. But … I’m much more interested in getting it right the first time, and it is absolutely in states’ best interest … to get it right the first time.”

Again Duncan is querried: “There are a couple of states [for example South Carolina] that made news because they want to reject stimulus money, especially education money. Are you working with people in those states to figure out how to possibly still get some of that stimulus money into those states, or is it going to be a dead end for you all?”

Duncan: “We are absolutely working with folks in those states who care passionately about the care of their children’s education, and there isn’t a state in the country [that] doesn’t have tremendous unmet educational need. … And so we are actually looking to be creative and work with people who have a vision and a passion for this and want to do the right thing by children.”

The reporters push Duncan: “What can you do?”

Duncan: “Stay tuned.”

Arbitrary Power against the Public & the Crisis of Legitimacy

Since being appointed Secretary of Education by President Obama, Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education have initiated a massive media campaign of interviews, speeches, and news and department press releases, a sample of which is reprinted above, which focus on how the Obama Administration will use ARRA funds to further its agenda for education, with Ducan emphasizing that “this is the President’s vision.”

Key to this campaign is the role given to “incentives” at the disposal of executives, such as Duncan, who arbitrarily use the funds to support “what they like”. “We have significant carrots and sticks,” Ducan emphasizes. This arbitrary use of large sums of the public treasury by executive and unelected officials signals a significant concentration of power and a challenge to the constitutional powers given to states. But one cannot understand the drive to increase executive power, the secretary’s emphasis on “carrots and sticks,” absent an understanding of the opposition to “the President’s vision” for education.

As outlined in speeches by both Obama and Duncan, the administration is calling for more high-stakes testing, academic sweatshops for teachers and students in the form of corporate run charter schools and more mayoral control of urban school districts against more, not less, public control over education. Yet, by the U.S. Department of Education’s own accounts, and by the accounts chronicled in decades worth of independent research on school reform, not to mention people’s own direct experience these “reforms”, none of these methods have served to improve education.

So why the continued pursuit of “reforms” that have not served the aims for which they were officially established? Why the emphasis on “carrots and sticks” or what amounts to outright bribery?

While Duncan misuses the carrot and stick idiom (as it refers to a “carrot on a stick,” where a driver would tie a carrot on a string to a long stick and dangle it in front of the donkey, just out of its reach, to induce the donkey forward) the content of bribery is clear.

To bribe means to “persuade (someone) to act in one’s favor by a gift of money or other inducement”. Importantly, bribery only makes sense in the face of a norm, standard or other basis for refusal to act in a manner desired by the person offering the bribe. What is very significant from the political point of view is that, as a form of persuasion, bribery does not rest on reasoned argument, the use of facts and logic to justify a proposed course of action. At the level of federal law and policy, bribery is a form of persuasion that rests on the open assertion of authority against public opinion: one would not need to bribe educators and locally elected officials into doing what was inherently in their interest. The use of the public treasury to bribe educators is an open admission that the path being imposed by the ruling elite cannot be justified.

Thus, the use of ARRA funds to compel educators to take up “reforms” that have already been discredited as ineffective and against voters demand for change (not more of the same Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush cooperate education agenda) signals a profound legitimacy crisis. It signals a fairly broad opposition within official organizations to the wrecking of public education. The National School Boards Association has, for example, continually opposed mayoral control as both ineffective and anti-democratic. Every major education research organization, such as the American Psychological Association and the American Educational Research Association, has opposed in some form, to take another example, the use of high-stakes testing. Only a few weeks ago, Warrick County (Indiana) Superintendent Brad Schneider criticized the Bush-sponsored No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act as “mind-boggling” and “absurd.” And, public opinion still supports public education against privatization.

The transformation of public funds into “carrots and sticks” to be used against students, educators and parents must be rejected as an illegitimate use of power against public opinion. It must also be recognized as an admission on the part of the elite that they have no solutions to the problems in education and society. What is needed is more, not less, control over institutions that have an inherent public function.

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Before addressing the political basis of this methodological project, it is important to note that the authors make the mistkae that Robert Yin suggests is all too common: research on school performance confounds schools as the proper unit of analysis with individuals; this is especially common with those obsessively turning to randomized field trials. (See Yin, R. K. (2009). Case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.)

I think exposing their position as emanating from political theory — rather than an thoughtless imports from the natural and sciences — might prove helpful in both evaluating the book and articulating the political significance of school choice policy more generally.

Random Trials as Opportunity Science

Of note is the book’s adoption of U.S. Department of Education, and in particular the Institute of Educational Sciences, insistence on the “gold standard” of experimental design: the “random assignment of units to experimental and control or contrast conditions (2).”

“Randomized field trials” are thus adopted as the key method for studying school choice. By studying the measurable outcomes of applicants who were lotteried into an oversubscribed charter school or voucher program to those who were lotteried out and attended a traditional public school, the influence of family background can be separated out from that of the school itself (but again, this promotes confusion regarding the unit of analysis).

According to the authors, the strength of this method and other efforts such as over time measures of “value added,” is that they help “take into account the powerful influence of families” and help “establish the separate and distinct contribution of the school to a student’s achievement.”

The postulate that experimental design is equally the gold standard for the social sciences as it is for the natural sciences is taken for granted. It presents itself as a solution to a perennial problem in school evaluation research predating even the “Coleman Report”: controlling for the influence of family characteristics on school outcomes. It seems as a rational way out of that conundrum — but only if certain things are ignored or forgotten.

What is the assumption behind the presupposition that students must be separated from their historical position, their social circumstance, in order to assess the quality of their school and the degree to which they have learned what is required of them? How does this premise inform the cultural meaning of “achievement” as distinct from student learning?

What is the political significance of the fact that this kind of “controlling” for social circumstance was largely impossible under a traditional public school model where place of residence determined school assignment for all but a tiny minority of public school students?

Irrespective of the logic justifying the “controlling” for social circumstance, is not such a project irrational? Can one “control” for social circumstances? Such efforts reveal a profound distortion and patently unscientific view of social reality. Does not the entire project of “controlling” for social circumstance — which includes everything from assumptions about “ethnicity” and parental “SES” to larger understandings of religion, culture and sub-cultures of neighborhoods — itself constitute a social circumstance and a patently normative project which serves the interests of some over others?

Political Logic of Random Selection

In beginning to answer my own question posed above (“What is the political significance…”) I am not arguing with the general logic of the controlled experiment, or the statistical reality of randomization and its utility for understanding cause and effect. What I am arguing is that this fetish of random trials pushed by the IES is derived from the following notion: that schools are successful to the degree they produce students who successfully compete in the academic marketplace (the exchange of grades and test scores for places of opportunity, praise and so on). Closing the achievement gap is an official effort to contend with the overgrowth of social inequality while simultaneously violently blocking any real effort or even discussion of reducing (let alone eliminating) social inequality. This pathology stems from the long-standing assumption of American political theory that replaces class struggle with the struggle for education. (Refer to classic quotes from Horace Mann for an elaboration, or even better, see Rush Welter’s (1962) Popular education and Democratic Thought in America.)

The underlying logic of this strand of charter school research (Berends et al.) is that charters should be promoted, not because they are necessarily proven to be better, but because they create competition — not only among schools, but among teachers, as researchers document a lower average salary, yet a larger spread in annual earnings for charter as compared to traditional public school teachers. Randomization is opportunity science speak for fair competition (e.g., no “selection bias”).

This competition is key because it allows for arrangements heretofore difficult to make, like linking student achievement with teacher pay, something the authors deem of obvious value and unproblematic. Teachers are evaluated on the degree to which they help students compete (e.g., note the language and real meaning of “high flying schools”), irrespective of the background and ability of the students. Good teachers are those whose students successfully compete in academic competitions (i.e., high stakes tests). Charter schools eschew the working class politics of union and solidarity and stand as institutions more firmly on the grounds of individual merit and competition. That is to say, good teachers are those that help liberate students from their social place through academic competition (again, there are other notions of “good teacher”) just as black and poor kids are supposed to “achieve” because in this “meritocracy,” race and class aren’t factors in determining ones place in the social order — charters are to replace public schools as the means for this liberation. Those that have a different view are deemed to have a bad attitude (“low expectations”).

The logic goes like this: pointing to realities of structural inequality and the impact “going without” has on child development (and thus “achievement”) introduces bias, just as introducing lotteries eliminates it. One could of course point out that it is quite biased to set up a social system which forces some more than others to be in positions where they need to “choose a good school.” This question has of course been forced off the agenda by advocates of “change” and “innovation”.

Randomization helps create, then, as a standardized norm-reference test does, a “fair playing field” — a free market, unencumbered by the realities of ones historical location, only “merit” rules. Like academic tests, charters, the logic goes, are the engine of a meritocracy for educational institutions, and the “best and brightest” will rise to the top, but could fall any moment, like a dot.com, if they don’t continually “strive” and “achieve”.

In this way, the research continues not because it is helping to answer questions of policy makers or the public (an admission that openly appears in the book) but because it is a mechanism for instituting more forcefully that arrangement of which charters are a part. The idea that one “lotteries” into a school not only suggests an open disregard for planning for the future of youth, a willingness to gamble on their future, but also a particular notion of fair play — rich and poor are equally selectable by the dice.

This entire view is antithetical to education as a right and signals an outright rejection of the notion that society has any responsibility to its members. Yet, successful schools are those that are not able to coach kids to the top of the heap, but prepare them for full participation in social life, in solving problems, etc.

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“Was there ever a time in the history of public education that the guaranteed right of each member was the driving force?”

The short answer is no, but it is an unsatisfactory answer because it does not deal with the meat of the question.

Rights exist. Consciousness of their existence and the ability, objectively, of a society to meet or guarantee those rights, varies across historical time and space. We could say that the only reason we are even speaking of rights is because we are conscious of our needs, but realize they are not met. If rights were realized, we would not be having this discussion…the only reason we have the conception is because of the gulf between the reality that they exist and could be met, while society has yet to meet them.

The content of rights varies with historical epoch and culture, which is not to say it is relative. High school and even college are rights now because that level of education is what is required for full participation and to be a responsible member of society. This makes no sense for the Iroquois of the 18th century, or a colonial settlement.

The ability of the present society to provide all members with a high school education is not in question. Yet, this is not happening. This does not mean that rights don’t exist, but that society has yet to develop – the demand that education is a right is a demand that helps push the society to improve!

Here’s a thought experiment that helps with rights. Take a spider plant (I love those because anyone can maintain them, they have lots of babies, and are generally cool looking). If the spider plant does not get enough water, it will die. Not getting enough water does not change the fact that the spider plant needs the water. Its need for the water is a feature of its being. The need for education is a feature of our being. The level and character of the education needed depends on the level of development of the society, which of course includes the consciousness of its members; it is also always changing.

The more folks claim education as a right, the more conscious they are of it as a need or requirement for living. African Americans, for example, have contributed greatly to this struggle by making this claim to education (note the idea of “equal educational opportunity” is a poorly formulated version of education is a right) central to the fight for rights in general.

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