{"id":1823,"date":"2021-04-01T11:29:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-practicalfoundations\/?post_type=chapter&p=1823"},"modified":"2021-04-01T11:30:27","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:30:27","slug":"the-growing-federal-role-in-education-can-be-problematic","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-practicalfoundations\/chapter\/the-growing-federal-role-in-education-can-be-problematic\/","title":{"raw":"The Growing Federal Role in Education can be Problematic","rendered":"The Growing Federal Role in Education can be Problematic"},"content":{"raw":"By any standard, the role of the federal government in guiding education policy has grown over the past century.\u00a0 This ballooning has particularly affected the last two decades as more and more control is exerted.\u00a0 Dollars get tied to the dictates of the Department of Education, as our reading reflects.\r\n\r\nI\u2019m reminded of an indirect quote from a previous text I used, entitled Introduction to Teaching Becoming a Professional<\/em>.\u00a0 Here it is.\u00a0 Noted researcher Diane Ravitch notes: \u201cThe curriculum will be narrowed even more than under George W. Bush\u2019s No Child Left Behind, because of the link between wages and scores\u201d (as cited in Kauchak & Eggen, 2014, p. 291).\r\n\r\nThis is a powerful quote and worth thinking through.\u00a0 What gets squeezed out of the teaching day may be variety, chance taking, and anything that cannot be directly tied (business-fashion) to that \u201cbottom line.\u201d\u00a0 My commentary on this isn\u2019t new. . .\u00a0 the general shift has been toward a top-down business model.\u00a0 For instance, in an area such as English, the push is to quantify writing\u2014a necessarily qualitative process.\u00a0 We get pressured even here at Jefferson to try and turn our rubrics from expectations to numbers (so that a shady area like style or integration would count for X number of points on the essay).\r\n\r\nStill, a lot of this does tie back to the growing federal role and how money in tough times can exert increasing influences toward centralization.","rendered":"

By any standard, the role of the federal government in guiding education policy has grown over the past century.\u00a0 This ballooning has particularly affected the last two decades as more and more control is exerted.\u00a0 Dollars get tied to the dictates of the Department of Education, as our reading reflects.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of an indirect quote from a previous text I used, entitled Introduction to Teaching Becoming a Professional<\/em>.\u00a0 Here it is.\u00a0 Noted researcher Diane Ravitch notes: \u201cThe curriculum will be narrowed even more than under George W. Bush\u2019s No Child Left Behind, because of the link between wages and scores\u201d (as cited in Kauchak & Eggen, 2014, p. 291).<\/p>\n

This is a powerful quote and worth thinking through.\u00a0 What gets squeezed out of the teaching day may be variety, chance taking, and anything that cannot be directly tied (business-fashion) to that \u201cbottom line.\u201d\u00a0 My commentary on this isn\u2019t new. . .\u00a0 the general shift has been toward a top-down business model.\u00a0 For instance, in an area such as English, the push is to quantify writing\u2014a necessarily qualitative process.\u00a0 We get pressured even here at Jefferson to try and turn our rubrics from expectations to numbers (so that a shady area like style or integration would count for X number of points on the essay).<\/p>\n

Still, a lot of this does tie back to the growing federal role and how money in tough times can exert increasing influences toward centralization.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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