Like a Sling-Shooter Lobbing Stones at the Moon

When the junior senator from Iowa banged the gavel twenty minutes late to begin yesterday’s Senate HELP Committee hearing, I was anticipating a good, meaty policy conversation on revamping high school accountability. After all, Senator Harkin titled the Tuesday afternoon event “ESEA Reauthorization: Improving America’s Secondary Schools.” Even the witnesses promised to be a bit wonky and full of ideas: a researcher, an education policy director, several school principals and reformers.

As the meeting started, the bottom-right chamber of my heart (the policy chamber) pulsated in hopes that I would soon learn something new.  Definitions of high school success, equations tracking student learning in grades 6-12, incentives changes to NCLB—anything, really, that would herald real, substantive reform for our ailing high schools.

Senator Harkin started out fairly strong.  He began by correctly diagnosing part of the high school problem by telling everyone that an alarming 7,000 students are dropping out of school each day in the U.S.  (The other part of the high school problem, not mentioned by Harkin, is ensuring that a high school education adequately prepares students for success in their future college studies and careers.)  Sen. Harkin went on to endorse early warning systems that alert middle school leaders when students are at risk of dropping out of school in the future.  Alert systems—good.

But then it happened.  All of a sudden.

After Tom Harkin turned his mic off and commenced with testimonies and senator questions, the hearing fell apart.  It exploded into a free-for-all education policy pow wow, choc-full of diversions, rhetoric, issues from past hearings, and, yes, a lengthy basketball joke.  Senator Burr wanted to know why students are still using paper-based textbooks in the 21st century (an important question, but not anyone’s top fix for our high schools).  Senator Franken, the former Minnesota comedian, enthusiastically said that he wished he could spend an entire weekend in a hotel listening to education reform stories (he arrived at the hearing late and left early).  And the independent Sen. Sanders spoke inexorably about the promises of early childhood education (only nine grade levels off target).

There were a few moments of much-needed relief when serious high school reform ideas were presented.  Sen. Hagan liked early college high schools for students who perform poorly in traditional ones.  Sen. Burr inquired about the “tools of rigorous accountability for high schools.”  Sen. Reed hinted that a lot of high school success depends on the principal being both a manager and an instructional leader.  These ideas and questions made the hearing bearable.

Yet, the central question, the crucial issue, for secondary school reform in ESEA reauthorization is: What can the federal government do to improve our weak secondary schools?  This was missed entirely, like a sling-shooter lobbing stones at the moon!  Senators should have asked: How can we incentivize our high schools to provide students with valuable educations that seemlessly prepare them for college and work?  What is the best way to redesign NCLB’s “adequate yearly progress” mandate?  What kinds of assessments are missing from our secondary schools?  What measures best determine how well high school teachers are teaching?

Recognizing that his hearing had failed on substance, Senator Harkin handed out a consolation prize during his closing remarks: “If I know there’s one thing we’re going to change, it’s how AYP is calculated.”  Tell me more about that, Sen. Harkin.

Alas, based on this hearing, I am feeling disheartened, grieved, and doubtful about meaningful high school reform coming from any laws crafted by the U.S. Senate this year.  The ratio of theater to substance yesterday—4:1.

Full Disclosure: I worked on Sen. Burr’s 2004 election campaign and interned in his Washington office in 2005.

Tagged as: ESEA Reauthorization, High School Accountability, No Child Left Behind, Senator Tom Harkin, U.S. Senate HELP Committee