Governance of Steel and Kryptonite Politics in Contemporary Public Education Reform James Liebman
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Florida Law Review Volume 69 Article 2 Issue 2 Volume 69, Issue 2 (2017) March 2017 Governance of Steel and Kryptonite Politics in Contemporary Public Education Reform James Liebman Elizabeth Cruikshank Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr Part of the Education Law Commons Recommended Citation James Liebman and Elizabeth Cruikshank, Governance of Steel and Kryptonite Politics in Contemporary Public Education Reform, 69 Fla. L. Rev. 365 (2017). Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol69/iss2/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UF Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Law Review by an authorized editor of UF Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Liebman and Cruikshank: Governance of Steel and Kryptonite Politics in Contemporary Publi GOVERNANCE OF STEEL AND KRYPTONITE POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY PUBLIC EDUCATION REFORM James S. Liebman*, Elizabeth Cruikshank**, Christina Ma*** Abstract Entrenched bureaucracies and special-interest politics hamper public education in the United States. In response, school districts and states have recently adopted or promoted reforms designed to release schools from bureaucratic control and empower them to meet strengthened outcome standards. Despite promising results, the reforms have been widely criticized, including by the educationally disadvantaged families they most appear to help. To explain this paradox, this Article first considers the governance alternatives to bureaucracy that the education reforms adopt. It concludes that the reforms do not adopt the most commonly cited alternatives to bureaucracy—marketization, managerialism, or professionalism/craft— and that none of those models effectively frees public education of special-interest politics. This Article next argues that another governance and civic engagement model, democratic experimentalism, better explains the reforms and offers an attractive alternative to special-interest politics. This Article finds, however, that the reforms have not effectively implemented the “democratic” part of experimentalism, resulting in backlash from the families the reforms might benefit the most. This Article concludes by proposing a more fully democratic version of the reforms designed to improve student outcomes, powerfully engage key stakeholders, and diminish opposition. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................367 I. K–12 BUREAUCRACY AND ITS DISCONTENTS.........................373 A. Governance ....................................................................373 B. Politics............................................................................376 C. The Education Reform Response to Bureaucracy and Special-Interest Politics.....................386 1. Education Reform in General..................................387 2. Education Reform Examples...................................390 * Simon H. Rifkind Professor, Columbia Law School. The authors are grateful for the outstanding research assistance of Anoushka Asgari, Brian Campbell, Caleb Deats, Levi Downing, Peter Fountain, Mark Goldberg, Simon Greenberg, Remy Grosbard, Daniel Hamburg, Kelsey Hogan, Ryan Johansen, Tara Raam, Gautam Rao, Jason Schnier, Prateek Vasireddy, and Jamie Wolfe. ** Law Clerk, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. *** Associate, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. 365 Published by UF Law Scholarship Repository, 2017 1 Florida Law Review, Vol. 69, Iss. 2 [2017], Art. 2 366 FLORIDA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 69 a. Moderate Steps: Houston, Boston, Charlotte-Mecklenberg, and Denver................390 b. All-Out Reform: New York City, 2002–2013........................................................393 c. Collaborative Reform: Baltimore.....................399 d. Federal Policy Under the Obama Administration .................................................402 3. Two Puzzles ............................................................403 II. THE INABILITY OF PROMINENT ALTERNATIVES TO BUREAUCRACY TO EXPLAIN OR SUSTAIN THE REFORMS ........................................................................404 A. Marketization..................................................................404 B. Managerialism................................................................407 C. Professionalism/Craft.....................................................410 D. Defects Common to the Contending Alternatives.....................................................................414 III. DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENTALISM AS AN ANTIDOTE TO BUREAUCRACY AND SPECIAL-INTEREST POLITICS ............416 A. Promise, in Theory .........................................................416 1. Governance .............................................................417 2. Politics.....................................................................419 B. Concerns, in Theory .......................................................421 C. Promise, in Practice.......................................................423 1. Toyota .....................................................................423 2. Drug Courts.............................................................424 3. Environmental Protection........................................425 4. Chicago Community Policing .................................427 5. Special Education in Finland .................................429 D. Concerns.........................................................................430 IV. DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENTALISM IN—AND NOT IN—PUBLIC EDUCATION TODAY ............................................431 A. Experimentalist Governance and the Promise of the New Education Reforms.........................432 B. The Absence of Experimentalist Politics and Risk of the Reforms’ Demise ...................................436 1. A New Vision of Education Politics .......................436 2. The Sobering Reality of Education Politics ............438 V. A MORE DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENTALIST REGIME FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION ...........................................443 https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol69/iss2/2 2 Liebman and Cruikshank: Governance of Steel and Kryptonite Politics in Contemporary Publi 2017] CONTEMPORARY PUBLIC EDUCATION REFORM 367 A. The Challenge of Stakeholder Engagement in Public Education........................................................444 B. Authentic Experimentalist Engagement in Public Education........................................................446 1. Educators.................................................................447 2. Parents .....................................................................450 3. Supportive Organizations........................................454 C. Traditional Interest Groups............................................458 CONCLUSION.........................................................................................463 INTRODUCTION Since the turn of the century, a public education reform movement has taken shape in states such as Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Tennessee,1 and in some of the nation’s largest school districts, including Camden, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Hartford, Houston, Long Beach, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Newark, New Haven, New York City, Oakland, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C.2 Steps taken—emphasizing 1. See, e.g.,PATRICK MCGUINN,CTR. FOR AM.PROGRESS,THE STATE OF TEACHER EVALUATION REFORM 11–35 (2012), www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2012/ 11/13/44494/the-state-of-teacher-evaluation-rform/ (evaluating and describing teacher evaluation reforms in Colorado, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Tennessee); THE BROAD PRIZE FOR PUB.CHARTER SCH., UNCOMMON SCHOOLS:TURNING URBAN SCHOOLS INTO SPRINGBOARDS TO COLLEGE (2014), http://broadfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1864-uncommon schoolswhitepaper.pdf (illustrating “successful college preparatory practices of . 38 public charter schools in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts” serving low-income students); U.S. DEP’TOF EDUC., RACE TO THE TOP:LOUISIANA REPORT YEAR 2: DECEMBER 2012–DECEMBER 2013, at 13, 14, 17 (2014), https://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/performance/louisiana- year-2.pdf (cataloguing Louisiana’s Race to the Top initiatives, including “great teachers and leaders,” “data systems to support instruction,” and “turning around the lowest-achieving schools”); Press Release, U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Delaware and Tennessee Win First Race to the Top Grants (Mar. 29, 2010), http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/delaware-and-tennessee-win- first-race-top-grants (describing the reform strategy that earned Tennessee the first Race to the Top grant, including large-scale training of students, actionable data in the hands of educators, and a statewide educator evaluation system). 2. See, e.g., PAUL T. HILL ET AL., STRIFE AND PROGRESS:PORTFOLIO STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING URBAN SCHOOLS 11–15 (2012) (detailing steps districts are using to improve schools, including enhanced school autonomy and accountability, pupil-based funding, and teacher development); Kristen L. Buras, New Orleans Education Reform: A Guide for Cities or a Warning for Communities? (Grassroots Lessons Learned, 2005-2012), 4 BERKELEY REV.EDUC. 123, 128– 30 (2013) (describing mass transition of traditional public schools to charter schools in New Orleans); CHARLOTTE-MECKLENBURG SCHS., THE ROAD TO REFORM (2010), www.cms.k12.nc.us/