Against Local Control

As I've previously recommended Matt Miller's Atlantic article "First, Kill All the School Boards" I feel I should also note the longer version of his argument, "Nationalize the Schools (...A Little)!" for the Center for American Progress. It's mostly the same stuff, but at greater length and in the dry, wonky form we expect from a think tank-sponsored PDF.

That said, he's correct. In a large and diverse country, there's a case for some level of local control. But fundamentally most of what a kid in New Mexico needs to know is the same as what a kid in North Dakota or Vermont or Virginia needs to know, and intense localization creates tons and tons of problems for no real reason other than blind tradition.

Comments

Matt,

The case for local control, from my vantage point. is not made form the standpoint of commodity but from the standpoint of distribution. You are right, students generally consume the same product. But effective mechanism for delivering that product vary greatly from state to state, from city to town, and even from person to person. This doesn't mean local control ought to devolve into wildly individualized accomodations. It means teaching techniques, funding structures, administrative oversight, transportation, textbooks, lesson plans and a number of other crucial variables come into play in notably different wayys from place to place. Sure, some stuff could and should be nationalized, but some stuff could and should be localized. That's just pure pragmatism. What we need to change are the mechanisms for honing educational approaches with the right local/national balance, not a wholescale reconception of what that balance should be.

Posted by Seth | March 10, 2008 2:56 PM

Yeah, the feds did such a great job maintaining our bridges and levies, why not put them in charge of educating our children too?

Posted by mike | March 10, 2008 3:07 PM

This is also known as the case for running a Zero State strategy. Since it's a sure political disaster.

Posted by AJ | March 10, 2008 3:13 PM

You Liberal Fascist!

Posted by Damon Linker | March 10, 2008 3:21 PM

Ah yes, the old libertarian "the government can't run anything well, why give them more" argument. Of course we should do away with the FDA since occassionally it is imperfect, and heck, why not the DOD, NASA, and every other centralized gov. program?

See, this is why I tell people that G. W. Bush and Ron Paul are opposite sides of the same coin. Bush mucks up government by appointing cronies because he doesn't care about the government. Therefore those departments (energy and FEMA to name a few) make boondoggle mistakes, which become exhibit A for getting rid of said department. Brilliant!

Posted by freddiemac | March 10, 2008 3:35 PM

I see two good reasons for local control of schools.

One is that decentralization allows more people to enjoy a school system that squares with their preferences. If there is an issue that divides American parents fifty-fifty, a national solution means that 50 percent of people will be unhappy, whereas local decision-making might allow almost everyone to attend a school district where their preference is met.

The other reason: parent participation in their children's education -- and citizen participation in local politics -- are good things, and they tend to happen much more when the local body making decisions is actually charged with formulating consequential policy, rather than whatever leftovers aren't important enough for the feds to take over.

A related virtue is that your average parent can go down to the school board meeting on Wednesday night to voice his or her opinion... but can't fly to Washington for the subcommittee hearing on educational testing.

Then there's the whole matter of the constitution leaving some matters to the states and the people...

Posted by Conor Friedersdorf | March 10, 2008 3:40 PM

Local funding is the worst aspect of the American public school system. The fact that the quality of education received in a given school district is partly dependent on property values in that district is an under-emphasized problem.

Posted by TH | March 10, 2008 3:47 PM

Oh yeah, the federal program No Child Left Behind is such a roaring success that the country should give over control of the schools to the federal government.

Re mike

For the information of Mr. mike, the federal government is not responsible for maintainence of roads and bridges, except for those federally owned which are mostly in the Washington DC area or in national parks. The responsibility for building and maintaining roads and bridges lies with the states and localities.

Posted by SLC | March 10, 2008 3:49 PM

I hadn't seen the "every problem in government and life is George Bush's fault" canard for a while. Thanks for reminding me that this one's still out there.

There's a serious point here, though. Do you think the levies in NO would have been better maintained if they were in Washington DC or NYC? I do. The farther away you get from DC in this country, the less likely you are to receive quality federal services.

Conor Friedersdorf is right. You need parents and the local community to take some ownership in areas like this. People in Washington DC just don't legitimately care about people in, well, anywhere else.

Posted by mike | March 10, 2008 3:51 PM

I love that Miller's example of a functioning nationalized school system is from a 19th century authoritarian monarchy. If your goal is to indoctrinate your subjects to work for the glory of the empire, then a nationalized education system is the way to go.

On a less sarcastic note, a nationalized system could perform better on average than the current system we have now, but it would be at the cost of student, parent and even teacher involvement in the education process, not to mention innovation that occurs at the local level.

Posted by Travis | March 10, 2008 3:59 PM

Thank you SLC for validating my point.

Posted by freddiemac | March 10, 2008 4:02 PM

The British think we are nuts with local school boards.

No matter what the Republicans think,
No matter what the Democrats think,

2+2=4
Unless Excel tells me that it equals 3.9999999999999962731

I am amazed tha Bergen County New Jersey has 1 million residents and New York City has 8 million residents. Bergen County has 72 school districts and New York City basically has 1.

It seems that either New York has too few or Bergen County has too many or ....

Posted by neil wilson | March 10, 2008 4:05 PM

Travis, I'm guessing you've not taken too many classes in 19th Century European economic/social history. Perhaps the best example of a functioning nationalized school system is that of the Third Republic, which, over a period of about 50 years, had taken Bretons, and Provencals, and Normans, and made them Frenchmen. See From Peasants to Frenchmen, among other books.

They also get some pretty damn good academic results even up to the present day.

There are two huge problems with the US instituting a national school system like those in Europe.

1. France, Germany, the UK, and others have much higher, or better yet, more even, population densities. The US tends to have wide disparities. This creates a great deal of logistical difficulties in creating a system.

2. The price of a home in the US is overwhelmingly tied to the local school system. That leads to some crazy differences in home price. If we instituted a national system, the value of the largest asset of the American middle and upper middle classes, their home, would plummet in a way that makes the current housing crisis look like a hiccup.

Posted by Greg | March 10, 2008 4:10 PM

It is a legitimate point to make that local control is better if you also admit that there is something uniquely broken and dysfunctional about America's political structure that means that alternative are not viable.

Seriously, no other country would put up with thousands of -- or even 50 -- different curricula.

Posted by Tyro | March 10, 2008 4:12 PM

There's a big doifference between a Federally dictated curriculum and direct Federal control. I can see justificatio for the former, up to a point, but not for the latter. Frankly, I have been very involved in two different school districts attended by my kids, and I really don't see much benefit from involving the Dept of Education and espcially not Congress.

Posted by Gene Salorio | March 10, 2008 4:48 PM

I wonder how many people advocating for nationalizing curriculum and control of schools have much experience with the public school system? In theory, standards and standardized curricula sound like just the ticket, but in practice, I'm less impressed. I've watched state curricula (in two different states) get more standardized as my daughter has gone through school, and the process has made schools more rigid, less able to allow students any freedom to find what interests them, what their passion is, what their motivation will be for learning any of this stuff. Nobody can really agree on exactly what should be in a curriculum at a given grade level, so everything tends to get thrown in there. As a result, it's impossible to cover the standard curriculum in a school year, even in a school that doesn't have kids struggling to pass the high-stakes tests. Everybody is following the "standard" curriculum, but still teaching different things, so then "power standards" are defined, to specify what really needs to be taught. No doubt at some point in the future, we'll need "ultra-power standards", or some such nonsense.

In the meantime, there's no room for any creativity or for the teacher to respond to a "teachable moment" with something going on in the world around us, or even adjust the speed of the curriculum to the level of the class, because we've got to move on to the next thing. And I say this as a very-involved parent of a child who is very bright and has had nothing but success in school. We treat kids as if they are empty vessels who need to be filled up with a certain amount of knowledge, and ignore the fact that we only learn things if we're motivated to some purpose; we don't learn things to fill our heads.

Posted by Sherri | March 10, 2008 4:56 PM

No, the worst school systems tend to be the largest -- e.g., LAUSD -- because they face the least competition. In contrast, smaller suburbs compete for young families on the basis of their school systems. For example, Long Beach and Glendale appear to do a better job than LA in running schools because good schools benefits their home prices. Same thing with Chicago's suburbs, with its famous public high schools such as New Trier -- they are competitive weapons.

A nationalized system would eliminate this suburb vs. suburb competition, so the overall results would decline.

Posted by Steve Sailer | March 10, 2008 5:04 PM

No Steve, the worst schools are the poorest. Therefore the elimination of eroding school funding due to declining equity in certain areas - in some cases now suburban - would end and overall quality of schools would increase.

Sherri, I would ask you if there is even a state curriculum. Because in most cases states don't have a curriculum per se, they just have testing, which is a de facto curriculum. But it is a poor substitute for a real curriculum. Funny how all the conservatives were for more testing a scant decade ago. You're telling me testing doesn't work?

Posted by freddiemac | March 10, 2008 5:38 PM

freddiemac,

Sherri doesn't sound "conservative" to me in her post. Just like someone who has reflected on what takes place in a child's mind as learning happens.

Public Education in the US is at an impasse because too many of us are talking from an obsolete play book instead of thinking critically about the problem.

Posted by STS | March 10, 2008 6:20 PM

The problem is simple: the more you nationalize rules like this, the more dissent you end up with. Local control allows people who disagree on fundamentals to all live in the same country.

If this bothers you, ask yourself how happy you would be if the anti-evolution crowd managed to enforce their will on a national level. If they screw up one district, or even one state, it's bad enough. And believe me, there are plenty of people who feel the same way about things you believe.

leave it local, and you'll generate far fewer conflicts.

Posted by James Robertson | March 10, 2008 6:21 PM

Regarding suburban Chicago's New Trier High School:

Enrollment about 4,100 and located in a wealthy suburb.

Come to your own conclusion(s)...

Posted by BlueStreak | March 10, 2008 6:28 PM

And this is why you are a failure.....

Posted by robertl | March 10, 2008 6:51 PM

If only other first-world countries had public school systems, then perhaps we could draw some lessons about how to improve our own and understand how to handle the local control issue...

Posted by Tyro | March 10, 2008 7:00 PM

I though Steve Sailer's argument was that poorly performing school systems perform poorly because they have too many black people. Come on, Sailer, you _know_ you've made that argument before....how come you're running away from it now?

Posted by Hector | March 10, 2008 7:22 PM

"I though Steve Sailer's argument was that poorly performing school systems perform poorly because they have too many black people."

I don't know if that's Sailer's argument, but there does seem to be a high correlation between the percentage of black and Hispanic students in a district and educational attainment. And this seems to be the case no matter how much money is thrown at the problem (e.g., spending $10k+ per student in D.C.). Do you have an explanation as to why this is, Hector?

Posted by Harry | March 10, 2008 7:39 PM

Re: The price of a home in the US is overwhelmingly tied to the local school system.

True, but I'm not sure that it's the funding that is the main draw. No matter how they are funded or who controls the bureaucracy some schools will always be better than others. Some will have better teachers. And most importantly, some will have better students. Upper middle class people will always be willing to pay a premium to live and have their kids schooled with other upper middle class kids, avoiding the wrong element from the other side of the tracks.

Posted by JonF | March 10, 2008 8:53 PM

Regardless of the merits of more federal control, no one is going to wrest control of schools from localities unless we stop funding schools from local property taxes. At the end of the day, despite all the reasons in favor of local control, the toughest nut to crack will be redistributing the tax burden.

Posted by mert7878 | March 10, 2008 9:12 PM

Haven't read the links, but I've often wondered how America's size and mobility affects test scores compared to other nations.

Because my family moved several times, I attended three different middle schools. Differences in scheduling meant that I wound taking the science unit on insects (complete with bug collection project) at all three schools.

I repeated the same lessons multiple times. And I can't help wondering what units I might've missed out on.

Posted by Lis Riba | March 10, 2008 10:01 PM

Another classic example of chimpanzee logic.

Accept the first mistake - that somehow the existing education system is the right way to go - and then try to make it worse by putting a guaranteed group of criminals and incompetents in control of it on a national level.

Meanwhile, other morons assume that all you need to do is get COMPETENT people in government and everything will work out fine.

Of course, they don't know how to do that and there is no evidence that it's ever happened in human history, but, hey, there's always a first time!

Nitwits.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 10, 2008 11:13 PM

Like choosing our own doctors in a universal health care system, Americans should be able to choose their schools. That's the way both will need to work in the long run.

Kids living in bad school districts shouldn't be made to suffer for our high ideals (or for teachers unions). If we tried to put universal health care through without any choice (like our current universal education system), virtually no one would support it.

Posted by Owen | March 11, 2008 12:01 AM

On the "tons and tons of problems" thing. Funny you should pick New Mexico as your first example, as I was just reading about the delightful current learnin' curriculum for the 3rd graders at Caroll Elementary in Bernalillo, NM, as provided by Yvette Sanchez apparently without shame.

Made me think of a thread of yours a few days ago where people got all up in arms about some insulting the learnin' of many elementary school teachers themselves. Well, I must admit this is not the first time I have wondered about that issue...

Posted by artappraiser | March 11, 2008 1:10 AM

I read the short version and found myself wanting more. Ultimately, I didn't think that Miller really made the case for nationalizing education so much as he makes the case that the government hasn't done enough to support education. He touches on the failure of No Child Left Behind, but neglects to mention that one of the reason why it has failed is that it was an unfunded mandate. I agree with his assessment that the Federal government did NCLB a disservice by allowing states to create their own, widely differential standards for student proficiency, rather than imposing uniform national standards. However, imposing (or recommending) national standards is different from imposing national governence of schools, which is what Miller seems to be suggesting. What a mess that would be. Again, the viable take-home message seems to be that we need to do a better job of support educational on a national level. Miller's notion that we should be investing more in R&D is a good one. Along those lines, what the federal government, if it were interested in investing more in education, which is a very big IF, should look into public-private partnerships. There are a lot of foundations out there with an interest in investing in public education, and some big money to do it.

Posted by GK | March 11, 2008 1:23 AM

There was a short guest op-ed in Monday's NYTimes that interestingly argued that what was needed with teachers unions themselves was more localization, not less:

Teaching Change
By ANDREW J. ROTHERHAM
While laws like No Child Left Behind take the punches for being a straitjacket on schools, it is union contracts that have the greatest effect over what teachers can and cannot do.

Posted by artappraiser | March 11, 2008 1:26 AM

The problem with national curriculum is that some yokel in Kansas who doesn't "believe" in science would have a say in how my children in Massachusetts are taught.

No freaking thank you for that.

Massachusetts has been ceding curriculum control from the local communities to the state, but still relies on local funding too heavily. The ideal solution in my mind would be more state funding and less burden on the local communities.

Posted by Charles Giacometti | March 11, 2008 2:02 AM

artappraiser,

That 3rd grade teacher is probably not aware enough about current events to know it, but what she is doing in promoting Obama in her classrooms is similar to what Russian teachers were doing with with Putin before the recent election.

Posted by Fred | March 11, 2008 2:15 AM

Conor Friedersdorf

One is that decentralization allows more people to enjoy a school system that squares with their preferences. If there is an issue that divides American parents fifty-fifty, a national solution means that 50 percent of people will be unhappy, whereas local decision-making might allow almost everyone to attend a school district where their preference is met.

James Robertson

The problem is simple: the more you nationalize rules like this, the more dissent you end up with. Local control allows people who disagree on fundamentals to all live in the same country.

Conor, James -- the argument you both are making does seem to point more toward a local system than a national system, but even more than a local system, it seems to point toward individual choice. After all, if it's a bad idea to piss of 49% of the country to satisfy 51%, isn't it also a bad idea to piss off 25% of a local school district to satisfy 75%? Even if a local school district is more homogeneous in its educational views than the country as a whole, it wouldn't be completely homogeneous. It seems like school choice -- possibly or possibly not in the form of vouchers -- would be the best way to insure that people get educations suited to them as individuals. Why devolve to the local district when you could devolve all the way to the individual?

mike

There's a serious point here, though. Do you think the levies in NO would have been better maintained if they were in Washington DC or NYC? I do. The farther away you get from DC in this country, the less likely you are to receive quality federal services.

The state of New York, at least, received $0.79 in federal spending for every dollar it paid in taxes in 2005. The state of Louisiana received $1.78 in federal spending for every dollar it paid in taxes in 2005. Washington DC is sui generis, and receives $5.55 in spending for every dollar it pays in taxes, but hey, capitals have to be somewhere. I'm not sure by what standards you're claiming that "the further away you get from DC in this country, the less likely you are to receive quality federal services," but the state receiving the most federal spending per dollar of taxes at $2.03 is New Mexico, not too near DC. The state receiving the least spending per tax dollar? New Jersey, at $0.61.

Posted by Julian Elson | March 11, 2008 2:54 AM

I live in LA, and my partner is a high school science teacher in a LAUSD school. The size, diversity (not just ethnic) and geographic spread of LA schools make them unmanageable from a central location. Imagining this spread across the US is horrifying.

Some time ago, as a society, we comforted ourselves with expert opinions that putting more money into schools didn't improve them. We then used that as a rationale to starve our schools. Realistically, the fundamental problem with our schools is that we have starved them of funding. There are plenty of ways to waste money, and there are plenty of ways in which money doesn't buy quality. But, the best funded schools are almost always the best schools.

Posted by Sherry | March 11, 2008 11:25 AM

If Horace Mann had succeeded at nationalizing the school system in his lifetime we would have achieved illeteracy far more quickly. He favored the adoption of whole language instruction for reading as opposed to a phonics approach. My point here is not a horace mann variation of the ad-hitlerium tactic but if you nationalize something there is the risk that you might end up putting all of your eggs in the wrong basket. That is not to say that there shouldn't be a role for the feds in education.

I think Matt's point about how children in North Dakota need to know the same things as the children in New Mexico is spot on. That speaks to standards. However, it doesn't say a blessed thing about how to achieve those standards. This is the basic problem with NCLB which has the equation backwards, let states set standards but have the feds dictate how the states are to reach the standards the states set. There should be basic federal standards and the states should be left to figure out how to meet them.

I really don't understand Miller's point on how increasing the national role in education will cure the union dominance problem. I would think it would exacerbate it. The union dominance problem at the local level is essentially one of regulatory capture. At least at the local level you have interest groups that are positioned to compete with the local union- parents, taxpayers. For them the consequences of a crappy school system are more immediate (e.g. uneducated kid, high taxes and an uneducated kid). At the national level I think the regulatory capture problem is likely to be more severe as the competing interests are less likely to be able to muster the organizational skills or align their interests effectively, whereas the AFT and NEA have been doing this for years.

Posted by richard | March 12, 2008 1:13 PM