Sara addresses "the perception that hardcore conservatives and the religious right support NCLB. This is wrong.
Hardcore conservatives and the religious right were not excited about NCLB; they held their nose and voted for, or did not oppose it, because they were told that it was part of the price for the 2000 electoral victory of a President who would do other things they supported.Before the 2000 election, most of the major conservative groups had coalesced around an Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization proposal--"Straight A's"--that was primarily focused around local "flexibility" and converting existing federal education funding streams to block grants. The NCLB proposals Bush put out during the campaign were a break with this.
Conservatives accepted it though, because they were told that the "softer," more soccer-mom friendly line Bush played on education during the 2000 campaign was important to winning over centrist voters in a year when voters unprecedentedly claimed education was their top concern. Conservatives were also placated by voucher proposals that were included in Bush's campaign plan (as well as in the proposal he initially introduced to Congress, though vouchers were basically DOA there) and, to a lesser extent, Reading First's emphasis on phonics. But they were never crazy about NCLB, and it's certainly not the policy they would have written if they had been in charge."
At the time, I testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce in favor of local flexibility - UNLESS that meant a governor could roll state funds into a voucher program.
No comments:
Post a Comment