No Child Left Behind And the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005 (Studies in Government and Public Policy)

This book provides the first balanced, in-depth analysis of how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) became law. Patrick McGuinn, a political scientist with hands-on experience in secondary education, explains how this happened despite the country's long history of decentralized school governance and the longstanding opposition of both liberals and conservatives to an active, reform-oriented federal role in schools. His book provides the essential political context for understanding NCLB, the controversies surrounding its implementation, and forthcoming debates over its reauthorization.

Using education as a case study of national policymaking, McGuinn also shows how the struggle to define the federal role in school reform took center stage in debates over the appropriate role of the government in promoting opportunity and social welfare. He places the evolution of the federal role in schools within the context of broader institutional, ideological, and political changes that have swept the nation since the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, chronicles the concerns raised by the 1983 report A Nation at Risk, and shows how education became a major campaign issue for both parties in the 1990s. McGuinn argues that the emergence of swing issues such as education can facilitate major policy change even as they influence the direction of wider political debates and partisan conflict.

McGuinn traces the Republican shift from seeking to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education to embracing federal leadership in school reform, then details the negotiations over NCLB, the forces that shaped its final provisions, and the ways in which the law constitutes a new federal education policy regime-against which states have now begun to rebel. He argues that the expanded federal role in schools is probably here to stay and that only by understanding the unique dynamics of national education politics will reformers be able to craft a more effective national role in school reform.

This book is part of the Studies in Government and Public Policy series.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Education policy review, 2007-05-12
This book takes a fascinating look at the educational policy in the USA since 1965. If you want to know more about US education policy, you need to read this book.


6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Great story (and data), good theory, weak on the key point of criticism, 2007-01-11
McGuinn's review of federal education policy and politics since Johnson's presidency is outstanding. His interview data dramatically enrich our understanding of the transformation of sentiment in the U.S. Congress since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). For readers who like to know what people were thinking about the role of the federal government in K-12 education, when they were thinking it, and how they acted in response to those ideas and proposals, McGuinn's study is essential reading.

At the same time, McGuinn's book is really about ESEA and its reauthorizations (the last of which is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 [NCLB]), not all of federal education policy. Inadequate attention is given to the politics and policy development of the other dramatic federal influence in K-12 schooling, namely, the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-142), now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; recently reauthorized as the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, but frequently abbreviated as IDEA '04 and still referred to as IDEA). If you have an interest in IDEA politics and policy, Tiina Itkonen, who is a professor at the California State University, Channel Islands campus, has a book forthcoming (derived from her doctoral dissertation, "Stories of Hope and Decline: Interest Groups and the Making of National Special Education Policy"), which is sure to be seen as a profound contribution to the field.

The idea of regime change, which is the theoretical perspective adopted by McGuinn, is a good one. Clearly, there was a change in congressional leadership, largely through a consensus among moderate Democrats and Republicans, as well as significant and active leadership across three presidential administrations. There was also an evolution in thinking about the role of the federal government in school reform. The power of McGuinn's perspective is that it requires a careful longitudinal analysis of political events and policy proposals.

At the same time, I think McGuinn understates the power of John Kingdon's work in explaining how we arrived at NCLB as well as the importance of the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA during the Clinton administration. I recommend Christopher Cross' book, Political Education: National Policy Comes of Age, and Larry Cuban's book, The Blackboard and the Bottom Line: Why Schools Can't Be Businesses, for additional insights into the development of the political consensus behind NCLB and the motives that had been slowly and increasingly driving the development of that consensus for nearly three decades.

Finally, I would contend that McGuinn's assertion that NCLB represents revolution rather than evolution needs further examination. Here, I think his policy regime change perspective comes up short because it does not help us decide what sort of policy mechanism justifies the status of revolutionary precedent. The 1994 reauthorization of ESEA included nearly all of the policy language that appears in the 2001 reauthorization (NCLB). The difference between them is the policy mechanisms included in the legislation--ESEA 1994 was all voluntary and rhetorical, while NCLB 2001 is mandatory--not the substantive thinking behind where federal education policy should go. This is a fine point, but critical to those who are interested in the implications of McGuinn's book for political science.

If you are interested in additional books explaining NCLB, you may wish to consider these:
No Child Left Behind and the Public Schools by Scott Abernathy
Politics, Ideology & Education: Federal Policy During the Clinton and
Bush Administrations by Elizabeth H. Debray
No Child Left Behind (Peter Lang Primer) by Frederick M. Hess
School's in: Federalism And the National Education Agenda by Paul Manna

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