Putting Kids Last

No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids, by Vladimir Kogan (Cambridge University Press, 328 pp., $29.99)

In February 2021—the aforesaid period nan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a school-reopening scheme that efficaciously extended nan Covid closures—teachers’ national bosses Randi Weingarten of nan American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Becky Pringle of nan National Education Association (NEA) were successful changeless interaction pinch then-CDC head Rochelle Walensky. The lobbying paid disconnected handsomely, according to reporting by nan New York Post, pinch nan CDC adopting national proposal “nearly verbatim” successful astatine slightest 2 cases.

By now, moreover astir mainstream wide commentators person acknowledged that nan semipermanent schoolhouse closures of nan pandemic era were disastrous. Yet nan guidelines of that disaster—the inclination to put nan governmental preferences of adults complete nan well-being of America’s K–12 children—have hardly been discussed beyond nan pandemic context.

A caller book by Ohio State University governmental intelligence Vladimir Kogan, No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids, looks to alteration this. Kogan draws attraction to really schools put culture-war authorities and different considerations complete nan needs of students and parents.

He originates pinch nan problematic conception that “schools are ‘community institutions.’” This is simply a politically convenient conception that allows schools to get distant pinch mediocre capacity and drift from their halfway mission, making acquisition astir everything but world performance. “Would residents beryllium OK pinch drinking contaminated water, laced pinch dysentery and typhoid, successful bid to protect nan jobs of those who activity for nationalist h2o agencies?” Kogan asks.

Many American acquisition failures, Kogan argues, are failures of antiauthoritarian accountability. The voting nationalist is not conscionable parents; world outcomes aren’t ever voters’ highest priority; and astir section aliases schoolhouse committee elections are either uncontested aliases neglect to coming meaningful choices to voters. It besides doesn’t thief that acquisition authorities has go truthful polarized. As Kogan writes, “It is adults who yet power nationalist schoolhouse districts done nan ballot box, and what they want is often rather different than what nationalist schoolhouse students need.”

Schools look a “trilemma,” writes Kogan. They must supply “a value acquisition for students, antiauthoritarian accountability to section voters, and good-paying employment opportunities for section residents.” But because children don’t vote, value acquisition often falls by nan wayside.

This is particularly existent erstwhile it comes to decisions to adjacent aliases consolidate schools—an progressively communal occurrence successful a clip of declining school-age population. Kogan finds that consolidations and closures by and ample don’t impact students’ world outcomes, but they’re difficult to instrumentality because big concerns make them “unavoidably a governmental alternatively than a technocratic process.” The consequence is often wasteful and inefficient spending.

The first connection successful Kogan’s “framework for acquisition reform” is unobjectionable: schoolhouse committee elections should beryllium held successful Novembers of moreover years truthful that they coincide pinch statesmanlike and midterm elections and maximize elector turnout. Kogan acknowledges that this betterment could “backfire” if it encourages uninformed voters to formed their ballots based connected governmental advertizing and endorsements from big liking groups and governmental parties. His 2nd proposal is for states to springiness higher ratings to schools that show beardown improvements successful student outcomes than to schools that already person precocious mean trial scores. Ratings based connected nan second measure, he writes, “unfairly penalize schools serving disadvantaged students.”

Emphasizing world betterment risks going excessively acold successful nan different direction: penalizing schools that service students from unchangeable middle-class families. For instance, successful Kogan’s schema, a schoolhouse successful which 100 percent of students meet nan literacy benchmarks from twelvemonth to twelvemonth would beryllium classed beneath 1 successful which 30 percent are literate 1 twelvemonth and 40 percent nan next. Kogan dismisses this concern: “Many parents . . . usage mean adjacent accomplishment arsenic a proxy for schoolhouse quality, moreover though we cognize it is not a very bully one.” What Kogan and nan economists he cites neglect to see is that schools pinch precocious mean student accomplishment besides are little apt to person issues pinch crime, violence, and behaviour much generally. Parents person reasons beyond academics for considering a school’s mean trial scores.

Kogan’s 3rd projected betterment is schoolhouse choice—though he prefers charter schools to backstage schoolhouse vouchers.

“[M]y perfect prime program,” he writes, “would activity arsenic a ‘gun down nan door’—a reliable threat that changes nan soul operations and authorities of a schoolhouse territory for nan amended while seldom having to spell off.”

As arguments for schoolhouse prime go, this 1 is unconvincing. Why build a charter schoolhouse if nan intent is simply to goad territory schools into improving? The threat is reliable only if students really person a choice, and territory schools will amended only if location is progressive title successful nan marketplace.

Kogan concludes pinch a broader constituent astir section democracy: “Future conversations astir acquisition betterment should statesman by acknowledging that section antiauthoritarian power of schools, though nan default, is not nan only option,” he writes. “Our strategy is simply a historically contingent mishap that emerged straight retired of big governmental interests and agendas—in nan lawsuit of nan system’s founders, an big civilized panic,” he writes, referring to really acquisition argumentation successful nan Massachusetts Bay Colony was shaped successful portion by concerns astir Satanic influence.

It’s an overseas statement connected which to end. While section antiauthoritarian power tin surely spell wrong, that hasn’t been nan biggest problem plaguing American schools successful caller years. States for illustration Mississippi, which mostly ignored national guidance connected schools reopening and nan school of phonics, person seen melodramatic improvements successful literacy rates and achievement; different states that followed nan national guidance person declined. If location is immoderate “adult civilized panic” successful American education, it would beryllium nan disastrous and anti-democratic educational policies of nan Covid era.

Nevertheless, Kogan’s book makes a persuasive lawsuit that American schools coming are engaged catering to nan needs of each constituency—teachers, nonparent voters, politicians, civilization warriors—except nan children whom they are expected to educate.

Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images