The surprise architects of an intrusive federal role.

Until the passage of the landmark No Child Left Behind legislation, educational policymaking remained uniquely decentralized in the United States. Indeed, the theology of localism in educational decision making remained dominant despite the growing influence of the federal judiciary on issues like civil rights, the nationalizing effects of text books and college admissions tests, and the escalating impact of the U.S. Department of Education in its relatively brief 25-year history.

Historically, the federal government was very much the junior partner to the states and localities.

Despite the significant escalation of Washington's influence in the last half of the 20th century, the national government remained relatively uninvolved and uninfluential in the core issues of classroom teaching and learning. It footed less than 10 percent of the bill for elementary and secondary education and categorical programs. While increasingly important to school districts, this hardly affected the daily lives of most teachers and students.

Rapid Transformation

However, as the standards-based reform movement took root throughout the country over the past decade, dramatic changes profoundly reshaped roles and responsibilities at the national, state and local levels. The NCLB's testing, accountability and reporting requirements, if fully implemented (a very big "if" given the current political backlash and the limited substantive and organizational capacities of both the U.S. Department of Education and state education agencies), would have a substantial impact on the teaching and learning process in classrooms and school operations.

While numerous analysts have dissected the legislation, relatively little attention has been paid to the profound ideological change that so rapidly transformed perspectives toward federal influence among the major architects of this far-reaching statute. The traditional education governance system was turned upside down in remarkably rapid fashion with the formerly junior federal partner now beginning to play a predominant role.

Whether the federal government, with its relatively minimal investment in K-12 education, has the political will and substantive expertise to demand 100 percent accountability remains an open question, but most observers concur that the recent reconfiguration of educational federalism has suddenly and dramatically altered the historical roles and responsibilities of local school systems, states and the federal government. The latter's influence is now very much in the ascendancy.

A Decentralized Tradition

For many decades, most Republicans, as well as leaders of the business community, were unalterably opposed to a significant role for the federal government by insisting education is primarily a state and local responsibility. This opposition was predicated upon a litany of apprehensions about expanded federal influence and frequently was based on a core belief that the strength of American education was its diversity and that national conformity would be anathema to education's uniquely decentralized strengths and traditions.

The deep-seeded fear of growing federal fiscal intervention and control was coupled with concerns that increased federal involvement not only would result in standardization and the loss of individual and local freedom and initiative, but also, and perhaps more importantly, precipitate large-scale tax increases that would weaken the national economy by causing greater inflation and dramatic increments in the national debt (a somewhat ironic historical concern in light of the current red ink context).

What has changed in recent years to so dramatically reshape attitudes toward federal involvement in education among such influential Republicans and business leaders? The NCLB legislation, after all, as the national capstone of the accountability movement, was not enacted by a liberal free-spending Democratic president or by a "big government" Democratically controlled Congress. Paradoxically, it was spearheaded by an avowed "compassionate conservative" Republican president who was strongly supported on a bipartisan basis by a Republican-led Congress and influential private-sector groups such as the Business Roundtable.

Little doubt exists that the standards-based reform movement triggered this dramatic transformation on the part of the nation's most influential political and business leaders. The publication of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983 reflecting concerns about the competitiveness of the nation's workforce in an increasingly global economy certainly was a powerful factor in catalyzing the new politics of education in which influential nationally visible leaders, including presidents, governors and corporate executives, became pro-active in education in unprecedented ways, focusing political attention on the need to develop higher academic standards to force improvement in what they perceived to be a failing education system.

For the first time, questions were raised in the most influential political and private sector circles as to whether with nation's historically decentralized system with almost 15,000 local districts and 90,000 public schools was in a position to compete internationally against the growing numbers of nations that had centralized systems with rigorous standards and high academic expectations.

A Supreme Irony

Ideologically, many Republicans and educators remain wary of this centralization of power in the national government. And, while Democrats criticize the Bush administration for inadequately funding NCLB, the new federal role with its emphasis on standards-based reform, assessments and accountability seems to be securely embedded in national policy. The likelihood of radical changes in NCLB are remote as a national bipartisan consensus seemingly has emerged that institutionalizes the need for stronger national leadership in efforts to improve academic achievement.

In other words, the leadership of both political parties, the nation's business leaders and the public at large apparently buy into the need for and the fundamental premises of NCLB despite what will assuredly be continuing bitter intergovernmental struggles over its implementation. The supreme irony is that this sea change in the federal role has been engineered by Republicans who almost overnight reversed decades of ideological opposition to federal intrusiveness in education matters.

Michael Usdan is a senior fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership, 4455 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 310, Washington, DC 20008. E-mail: [e-mail]