Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T03:02:31.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Progressive Policy Making in a Conservative Age? Civil Rights and the Politics of Federal Education Standards, Testing, and Accountability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2011

Jesse Hessler Rhodes
Jesse Hessler Rhodes
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent research on the politics of contemporary policymaking has centered the contributions of diverse conservative forces. Conservatives are viewed as the chief proponents of marketizing reforms featuring retrenchment of social programs, privatization of social services, deregulation, and tax reduction, as well as of disciplining policies that impose more stringent behavioral requirements on beneficiaries, employ testing and reporting to monitor recipient performance, and impose sanctions for non-compliance. These developments are often viewed as fostering a less egalitarian politics, especially for historically disadvantaged groups.

I examine the rise of standards, testing, accountability, and limited school choice policies in federal education policymaking, which are widely viewed as embodying the same conservative interests and ideologies that have shaped policymaking in other areas. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show that certain civil rights organizations, not conservative forces, provided much of the impetus for federal standards, testing, and accountability reforms, which they viewed as measures for raising the achievement of disadvantaged students. Tracing the origins and consequences of these policies, my research reveals that entrepreneurial progressives can achieve significant legislative successes that they believe will accomplish progressive objectives. However, these policy victories have yielded mixed substantive results, and they have also unleashed complex and unanticipated consequences.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2011 , pp. 519 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abernathy, Scott F. 2007. No Child Left Behind and the Public Schools. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albjerg, Patricia G. 2005. Schooling America: How the Public Schools Meet the Nation's Changing Needs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lee. 2008. Congress and the Classroom: From the Cold War to “No Child Left Behind”. University Park: Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Apple, Michael W. 2004. “Creating Difference: Neo-Liberalism, Neo-Conservatism, and the Politics of Educational Reform.” Educational Policy 18: 12–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Apple, Michael W. 2006. Educating the “Right” Way: Markets, Standards, God, and Inequality. 2nd ed.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baer, Kenneth. 2000. Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry., Heclo, Hugh, Hero, Rodney, and Jacobs, Lawrence. 2005. “Inequality and American Governance.” In Inequality and American Democracy: What We Know and What We Need to Learn, ed. Jacobs, Lawrence and Skocpol, Theda. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Jones, Bryan. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Beland, Daniel, de Chantal, Francois Vergniolle, and Waddan, Alex. 2002. “Third Way Social Policy: Clinton's Legacy?” Policy & Politics 30(1): 19–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Andrew, and Elman, Colin. 2006. “Complex Causal Relations and Case Study Methods: The Example of Path Dependence.” Political Analysis 14(3): 250–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertram, Eva C. 2007. “The Institutional Origins of “Workfarist” Social Policy.” Studies in American Political Development 21: 203–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, Julie. 2002. “Unions' Positions Unheeded on ESEA.” Education Week, November 6.Google Scholar
Blyth, Mark. 2002. Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borman, Geoffrey D., and D'Agostino, Jerome V.. 1996. “Title I and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of Federal Evaluation Results.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 18: 309–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braddock, Jomillis, and Slavin, Robert E.. 1992. Life in the Slow Lane: A Longitudinal Study of Effects of Ability Grouping on Student Achievement, Attitudes, and Perceptions. Baltimore, MD: Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2003. “Neo-Liberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy.” Theory and Event 7(1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2006. “American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization.” Political Theory 34(6): 690–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Lindsey. 2010. “The Obama Education Revolution.” The Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 28.Google Scholar
Campbell, Andrea. 2007. “Parties, Electoral Participation, and Shifting Voting Blocs.” In The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism, ed. Pierson, Paul and Skocpol, Theda. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Carnoy, Martin, and Loeb, Susanna. 2002. “Does external accountability affect student outcomes? A cross-state analysis.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 24(4): 305–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel. 2010. “Institutional Strangulation: Bureaucratic Politics and Financial Reform in the Obama Administration.” Perspectives on Politics 8(3): 825–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel., and Sin, Gisela. 2007. “Policy Tragedy and the Emergence of Regulation: The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.” Studies in American Political Development 21: 149–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Center on Education Policy. 2008. A Call to Restructure Restructuring: Lessons from the No Child Left Behind Act in Five States. Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy.Google Scholar
Chiang, Hanley. 2009. “How Accountability Pressure on Failing Schools Affects Student Achievement.” Journal of Public Economics 93: 1045–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. 1999. Title I in Midstream: The Fight to Improve Schools for Poor Kids. Washington, DC: Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights.Google Scholar
Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. 2001. Closing the Deal: A Preliminary Report on State Compliance with Final Assessment and Accountability Requirements Under the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994. Washington, DC: Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights.Google Scholar
Collier, David, Mahoney, James, and Seawright, Jason. 2004. “Claiming Too Much: Warnings about Selection Bias.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards, ed. Brady, Henry E. and Collier, David. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Commission on Chapter 1. 1990. “The Commission on Chapter 1: October 1990,” Papers of Gordon M. Ambach, Education Policy Papers, Box 256, Folder 9, “Chapter 1 Commission Meeting [2 of 2],” New York State Archives, Cultural Education Center, Albany, New York.Google Scholar
Commission on Chapter 1. 1991a. “Meeting Dates: Commission on Chapter 1,” Papers of Gordon M. Ambach, Box 256, Folder 9, “Chapter 1 Commission Meeting [2 of 2],” New York State Archives, Cultural Education Center, Albany, New York.Google Scholar
Commission on Chapter 1. 1991b. Commission on Chapter 1, “Commission on Chapter 1 Meeting, February 11–12, 1991,” Bella Rosenberg Papers, Box 11(1/6), Folder Bella Rosenberg, National Commission on Chapter 1, 1990–1994, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Commission on Chapter 1. 1991c. “Commission on Chapter 1 Meeting, April 23–24, 1991,” Bella Rosenberg Papers, Box 11(1/6), Folder Bella Rosenberg, National Commission on Chapter 1, 1990–1994, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Commission on Chapter 1. 1992. Making Schools Work for Children in Poverty: A New Framework Prepared by the Commission on Chapter 1. Washington, DC: Commission on Chapter 1.Google Scholar
Connolly, William. 2005. “The Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine.” Political Theory 33(6): 869–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowe, Justin. 2007. “The Forging of Judicial Autonomy: Political Entrepreneurship and the Reforms of William Howard Taft.” Journal of Politics 69: 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Gareth. 2007. See Government Grow: Education Politics from Johnson to Reagan. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
DeBray, Elizabeth. 2006. Politics, Ideology, and Education: Federal Policy During the Clinton and Bush Administrations. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Dee, Thomas, and Jacob, Brian. 2010. “The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Students, Teachers, and Schools,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 149–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Democratic Education Agenda. 1999. “Democratic Education Agenda: Democrats Must Act Now!” Papers of Patsy Mink, Representative of Hawaii, Box 2024, Folder 1, “Democratic Caucus: Education Task Force Memoranda/Agenda,” 1995–1999, n.d., Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Democratic Party. 1992. “Democratic Party Platform of 1992, July 13, 1992,” The American Presidency Project, University of California at Santa Barbara, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu.Google Scholar
Democrats for Education Reform. 2009. Rhetoric Vs. Reality: Race to the Top Backgrounder and Context, August 25.Google Scholar
Democrats for Education Reform. 2010. Education Equality Project, Education Trust, and National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Ed Groups to Congress: “Don't Derail Education Reform.” June 30.Google Scholar
DiBiase, Rebecca Wolf. 2005. State Involvement in School Restructuring Under No Child Left Behind in the 2004–05 School Year. Denver: Education Commission of the States.Google Scholar
Duncan, Arne. 2009. “President-elect Obama Announces Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education,” Change.gov: The Office of the President-Elect, December 16.Google Scholar
Edley, Christopher. 2002. “Keeping the Promise of ‘No Child Left Behind’.” Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education on Education and the Workforce Oversight Hearing on the Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, July 24.Google Scholar
Education Equality Project. 2010. “History.” Available at http://www.educationequalityproject.org/pages/history.Google Scholar
Education Trust. 1999a. Dispelling the Myth: High Poverty Schools Exceeding Expectations. Washington, DC: Education Trust.Google Scholar
Education Trust. 1999b. “Title I Fact Sheet #1: Accountability—All Must Mean All and Progress Must Mean Progress,” September 13.Google Scholar
Education Trust. 2010. “Statement from the Education Trust on the Upcoming Announcement of the Finalists for “Race to the Top” Grants.” March 4.Google Scholar
Epstein, Joyce L., and MacIver, Douglas J.. 1992. Opportunities to Learn: Effects on Eighth Graders of Curriculum Offerings and Instructional Approaches. Baltimore: Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students.Google Scholar
Figlio, David, and Rouse, Cecilia Elena. 2006. “Do Accountability and Voucher Threats Improve Low-Performing Schools?” Journal of Public Economics 90: 239–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figlio, David, and Winicki, Joshua. 2005. “Food for Thought: the Effects of School Accountability Plans on School Nutrition.” Journal of Public Economics 89: 381–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finn, Chester E. 2010. “The End of the Education Debate.” National Affairs Winter: 63–74.Google Scholar
Finn, Chester E., Manno, Bruno, and Ravitch, Diane. 2000. Education 2001: Getting the Job Done. A Memorandum to the President-Elect and the 107 thCongress. December.Google Scholar
Forum on Educational Accountability. 2004. “Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act,” October 21, available at www.edaccountability.org.Google Scholar
Garland, David. 2001. The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Alexander, and Bennett, Andrew. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Giroux, Henry. 2005. “The Conservative Assault on America: Cultural Politics, Education, and the New Authoritarianism.” Cultural Politics 1(2): 138–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giroux, Henry, and Saltman, Kenneth. 2009. “Obama's Betrayal of Public Education? Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling.” Critical Studies, Critical Methodologies 9: 772–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glenn, Brian, and Teles, Steven. 2009. Conservatism and American Political Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Dana. 2008. “On Education, Obama Avoids Fight with the Unions.” American Prospect, November 19.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Rebecca, and Beutel, Andrew. 2008. “‘Soldier of Democracy’ or ‘Enemy of the State’? The Rhetorical Construction of Teachers through No Child Left Behind.” Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies 7(1): 276–300.Google Scholar
Graham, Hugh D. 1984. The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2004. “Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States.” American Political Science Review 98(2): 243–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2006. The Great Risk Shift. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S. 2010. “The Road to Somewhere: Why Health Reform Happened.” Perspectives on Politics 8(3): 861–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, Mettler, Suzanne, Pinderhughes, Diane, and Skocpol, Theda. 2004. “Inequality and Public Policy.” Report to the APSA Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy. Available at http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/feedbackmemo.pdf.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, and Pierson, Paul. 2005. “Abandoning the Middle: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Limits of Democratic Control.” Perspectives on Politics 3(1): 33–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, and Pierson, Paul. 2010a. Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, and Pierson, Paul. 2010b. “Winner-Take-All Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States.” Politics & Society 38: 152–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hale, Jon. 1995. “The Making of the New Democrats.” Political Science Quarterly 110(2): 207–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanushek, Eric, and Raymond, Margaret. 2005. “Does School Accountability Lead to Improved Student Performance?” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 24(2): 297–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haycock, Kati. 1993a. Memorandum from Kati Haycock to the Members of the Commission on Chapter 1, February 23, 1993, Papers of Bella Rosenberg, American Federation of Teachers, Box 11(1/6), “Bella Rosenberg, National Commission on Chapter 1, 1990–1994,” Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Haycock, Kati. 1993b. Letter to Members of the Commission on Chapter 1, February 23, 1993, Bella Rosenberg Papers, Box 11 (1/6), Folder Bella Rosenberg, National Commission on Chapter 1, 1990–1994, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Haycock, Kati. 1993c. Letter from Kati Haycock to Members, Commission on Chapter 1, October 27, 1993, Papers of Bella Rosenberg, American Federation of Teachers, Box 11(1/6), Bella Rosenberg, National Commission on Chapter 1, 1990–1994, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Haycock, Kati. 2006. Written Testimony before the Commission on No Child Left Behind, Aspen Institute, September 25.Google Scholar
Haycock, Kati., and Weiner, Ross. 2005. “Do We Need to Repair the Monument?” Education Next 4(2): 8–19.Google Scholar
Hedstrom, Peter, and Ylikoski, Petri. 2010. “Causal Mechanisms in the Social Sciences.” Annual Review of Sociology 36: 49–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, Wade, and Zirkin, Nancy. 2009. Letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, to Senators Edward Kennedy and Michael Enzi, “Support Arne Duncan for Secretary of Education,” January 13.Google Scholar
Heritage Foundation. 2010. “Kids Deserve Better: Stopping the Obama Education Agenda.” July 28.Google Scholar
Hess, Frederick M., and Petrilli, Michael J.. 2008. “Bush the Hall Monitor.” National Review, December 23.Google Scholar
Hill, Dave. 2003. “Global Neo-Liberalism, the Deformation of Education, and Resistance,” Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies 1(1).Google Scholar
Himmelstein, Jerome. 1991. To the Right: The Transformation of American Conservatism. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hornbeck, David, and Haycock, Kati. 1995. “Making Schools Work for Children in Poverty.” In National Issues in Education: Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ed. Jennings, John F.. Washington, DC: Phi Delta Kappa International and Institute for Educational Leadership.Google Scholar
House Education Task Force 1995. “104th Congress: Privatize, Localize, Consolidate, Eliminate. Back to Basics Education Reform Act,” Office of the Assistant Secretary: Records of Kay Casstevens, Box 1, “Department,” National Archives of the United States, Silver Spring, Maryland.Google Scholar
Howard, Christopher. 2007. The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hursh, David. 2004. “Neo-liberalism, Markets, and Accountability: Transforming Education and Undermining Democracy in the United States and England.” Policy Futures in Education 3(1): 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hursh, David. 2007a. “Assessing No Child Left Behind and the Rise of Neoliberal Education Policies.” America Educational Research Journal 44: 493–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hursh, David. 2007b. “Exacerbating Inequality: The Failed Promise of the No Child Left Behind Act.” Race, Ethnicity, and Education 10: 295–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, Torben, and Stephens, John. 2008. “Partisan Politics, the Welfare State, and the Three Worlds of Human Capital Formation.” Comparative Political Studies 41(5): 600–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Brian, and Levitt, Steven. 2003. “Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(3): 843–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Lawrence. 2010. “Democracy and Capitalism: Structure, Agency, and Organized Combat.” Politics & Society 38(2): 243–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, John F. 1998. Why National Standards and Tests? Politics and the Quest for Better Schools. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Jerald, Craig. 2001. Real Results, Remaining Challenges: The Story of Texas Education Reform. Washington, DC: Education Trust, 2001.Google Scholar
Kafer, Krista. 2001. “A Small but Costly Step Toward Reform: The Conference Education Bill.” The Heritage Foundation, December 13.Google Scholar
Kantor, Harvey, and Lowe, Robert. 2006. “From New Deal to No Deal: No Child Left Behind and the Devolution of Responsibility for Equal Opportunity.” Harvard Educational Review 76: 474–502CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kingdon, John. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2d ed.New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Kluger, Richard. 2004. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Knapp, Michael S., Adelman, Nancy E., Needels, Margaret C., Zucker, Andrew A., McCollum, Heather, Turnbull, Brenda J., Marder, Camille, and Shields, Patrick M.. 1991. What is Taught and How to the Children of Poverty: Interim Report of a Two Year Investigation. Washington, DC: Policy Studies Associates/SRI International.Google Scholar
Krieg, John. 2008. “Are Students Left Behind? The Distributional Effects of the No Child Left Behind Act.” Education Finance and Policy 3(2): 250–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladd, Helen, and Lauen, Douglas. 2010. “Status versus Growth: The Distributional Effects of School Accountability Policies.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 29(3): 426–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. 2008. “Oppose the ‘No Child Left Behind Recess Until Reauthorization Act,’” June 18.Google Scholar
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. 2009. “President Obama Proposes Strategy to Reform U.S. Schools.” March 10.Google Scholar
Lipman, Pauline. 2002. “Making the Global City, Making Inequality: The Political Economy and Cultural Politics of Chicago School Policy.” American Educational Research Journal 39(2): 379–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipman, Pauline. 2004. “Education Accountability and Repression of Democracy Post-9/11.” Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies 2(1).Google Scholar
Lipman, Pauline., and Haines, Nathan. 2007. “From Accountability to Privatization and African American Exclusion: Chicago's ‘Renaissance 2010.’” Educational Policy 21(3): 471–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipman, Pauline, and Hursh, David. 2007. “Renaissance 2010: The Reassertion of Ruling-Class Power through Neoliberal Policies in Chicago.” Policy Futures in Education 5: 160–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lips, Dan. 2007. “Reforming No Child Left Behind by Allowing States to Opt Out: An A-PLUS for Federalism.” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2044, June 19.Google Scholar
Lowndes, Joseph. 2008. From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lyons, William, and Drew, Julie. 2006. Punishing Schools: Fear and Citizenship in American Public Education. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Goertz, Gary. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis 14: 227–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manna, Paul. 2006. School's In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
McAndrews, Lawrence J. 2006. The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965–2001. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
McCarty, Nolan. 2007. “The Policy Effects of Political Polarization.” In The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism, ed. Pierson, Paul and Skocpol, Theda. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McCarty, Nolan., Poole, Keith, and Rosenthal, Howard. 2006. Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
McCluskey, Neal, and Coulson, Andrew. 2007. “End It, Don't Mend It: What to Do with No Child Left Behind.” Cato Institute Policy Analysis No.599, September 5. Available at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8680.Google Scholar
McDill, Edward L., and Natriello, Gary. 1998. “The Effectiveness of the Title I Compensatory Education Program: 1965–1997.” Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk 3: 317–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonnell, Lorraine. 2005. “No Child Left Behind and the Federal Role in Education: Evolution or Revolution?” Peabody Journal of Education 80(2): 19–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGirr, Lisa. 2001. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McGuinn, Patrick J. 2006. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
McKeown, Timothy. 1999. “Case Studies and the Statistical Worldview: Review of King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry.” International Organization 53: 161–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNeil, Michele. 2010. “Duncan Deflects Civil Rights Groups' Criticism: You're Wrong.” Education Week, July 28.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 2009. “Promoting Inequality: The Politics of Higher Education Policy in an Era of Conservative Governance.” In The Unsustainable American State, ed. Jacobs, Lawrence and King, Desmond. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne. 2010. “Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era.” Perspectives on Politics 8(3): 803–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mettler, Suzanne., and Milstein, Andrew. 2007. “American Political Development from Citizens' Perspective: Tracking the Federal Government's Presence in Individual Lives Over Time.” Studies in American Political Development 21: 110–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, George. 2001. “Comparison of Education Proposals: President Bush, Lieberman/Roemer/Dooley, Miller/Kildee,” February 15, 2001. Papers of Patsy Mink, Box 1681, Folder 7, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, No Child Left Behind (HR 1), Binder B (1 of 3), National Archives, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Mudge, Stephanie Lee. 2008. “What is Neo-Liberalism?” Socio-Economic Review 6: 703–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics. 2010. NAEP 2008 Trends in Academic Progress: Reading 1971–2008, Mathematics 1973–2008. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.Google Scholar
NCLB Works! 2005. A Campaign To Reauthorize and Strengthen No Child Left Behind, nclbworks.org. Information is archived at http://www.biz4achievement.org/in_the_news/breakthrough_campaign.html.Google Scholar
Neal, Derek, and Schanzenbach, Diane Withmore. 2010. “Left Behind By Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Based Accountability.” Review of Economics and Statistics 92(2): 263–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nitta, Keith. 2008. The Politics of Structural Education Reform. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Benjamin, and Jacobs, Lawrence. 2009. Class War? What Americans Really Think about Economic Inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Payzant, Thomas. 1993. “Administration's Response to the Steering Committee of the Commission on Chapter 1's Analysis of the Administration's Title I Proposal,” Bella Rosenberg Papers, Box 11(1/6), Folder Bella Rosenberg, National Commission on Chapter 1, 1990–1994, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Perlstein, Rick. 2001. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Piche, Dianne. 2007. “Basically a Good Model: NCLB Can Be Fixed.” Education Next, September 15.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2005. “The Study of Policy Development.” Journal of Policy History 17(1): 34–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2007. “The Costs of Marginalization: Qualitative Methods in the Study of American Politics.” Comparative Political Studies 40: 146–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, Paul, and Skocpol, Theda. 2007. The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Policy Agendas Project. 2010. Gallup “Most Important Problem” Data. Policyagendas.org. This analysis can be conducted at http://www.policyagendas.org/page/trend-analysis. Accessed November 2010.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson. 1984. Political Innovation in America: The Politics of Policy Initiation. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polsky, Andrew. 2000. “When Business Speaks: Political Entrepreneurship, Discourse and Mobilization in American Partisan Regimes.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 12: 455–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, Michael. 1997. The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Program on Education Policy and Governance. 2010 “The 2010 Education Next-PEPG Survey.” Education Next, http://educationnext.org/.Google Scholar
Reauthorization of Hawkins/Stafford Consortium. 1992. “Recommendations to the House Education and Labor Committee on the Reauthorization of the Hawkins/Stafford Amendments of 1988,” December 2, 1992. Papers of Gordon M. Ambach, Education Policy Papers, Box 234, Folder 9, “R H/C C Final Report Original,” New York State Archives, Cultural Education Center, Albany, New York.Google Scholar
Reback, Randall. 2008. “Teaching to the Rating: School Accountability and the Distribution of Student Achievement.” Journal of Public Economics 92: 1394–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Revised Education Transition Guide. 1992. Papers of Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers, Box 70, Folder 13, Council of Chief State School Officers, 1992–1994, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.Google Scholar
Rhodes, Jesse H.Forthcoming. The State of No Child Left Behind: Political Entrepreneurs, Local Control, and the Paradoxes of School Reform. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Riker, William. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Riley, Richard. 1995. “Dear Senator” letter from Richard Riley to U.S. Senators, July 14, Office of the Undersecretary: Records of Mike Smith, 1996, Box 1, “Brief Materials (6),” National Archives of the United States, Silver Spring, Maryland.Google Scholar
Robelen, Erik. 2001. “ESEA Passage Awaits a Deal on Spending.” Education Week, December 12.Google Scholar
Robertson, Susan. 2007. “Remaking the World: Neo-Liberalism and the Transformation of Education and Teachers' Labor.” In The Global Assault on Teachers, Teaching, and their Unions, ed. Weis, L. and Compton, M.. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Rockoff, Jonah, and Turner, Lesley. 2010. “Short-Run Impacts of Accountability on School Quality.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2: 119–47.Google Scholar
Rotella, Carlo. 2010. “Class Warrior: Arne Duncan's Bid to Shake Up Schools.” New Yorker, February 1.Google Scholar
Rotherham, Andrew. 1999, “Toward Performance-Based Federal Education Funding: Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.” Progressive Policy Institute, April. Available at http://www.dlc.org/documents/ESEA.pdf.Google Scholar
Rotherham, Andrew. 2001. “Modernizing Title I for the 21st Century.” Title I Monitor, January 1.Google Scholar
Rudalevige, Andrew. 2003. “Forging a Congressional Compromise.” In No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability, ed. Peterson, Paul E. and West, Martin R.. Washington, DC: Brookings.Google Scholar
Rust, Edward. 1999. Statement of Edward B. Rust, Jr., Chairman and CEO, State Farm Insurance Companies, Before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives, on “Business Issues in Elementary and Secondary Education,” July 1.Google Scholar
Sack, Joetta. 1999. “Group Seeks Help for Minority Achievement.” Education Week, December 15.Google Scholar
Saltman, Kenneth. 2006. “The Right-Wing Attack on Critical and Public Education in the United States: From Neoliberalism to Neoconservatism.” Cultural Politics 2(3): 339–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawchuk, Stephen. 2010. “NEA's Delegates Vote ‘No Confidence’ in Race to the Top.” Education Week, July 4.Google Scholar
Schickler, Eric. 2001. Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schoenwald, Jonathan. 2001. A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schram, Sanford, Fording, Richard, and Soss, Joe. 2011. “Neoliberal Paternalism: Race and the New Poverty Governance.” In The State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the United States, ed. Jung, Moon-Kie, Vargas, Joao Costa, and Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Schram, Sanford, Soss, Joe, Fording, Richard, and Houser, Linda. 2009. Race, Choice, and Punishment and the Frontlines of Welfare Reform. American Sociological Review 74(3): 398–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schram, Sanford, Soss, Joe, Houser, Linda, and Fording, Richard. 2010. The Third Level of US Welfare Reform: Governmentality under Neoliberal Paternalism. Citizenship Studies 14(6): 739–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaker, Paul, and Heilman, Elizabeth. 2008. Reclaiming Education for Democracy: Thinking Beyond No Child Left Behind. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sheingate, Adam. 2003. “Political Entrepreneurship, Institutional Change, and American Political Development.” Studies in American Political Development 17: 185–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepsle, Kenneth. 2003. “Losers in Politics (and How They Sometimes Become Winners): William Riker's Heresthetic.” Perspectives on Politics 1(2): 307–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silver, Harold., and Silver, Pamela. 1991. An Educational War on Poverty: American and British Policy-making, 1960–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, Jonathan. 2007. Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 2003. Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 2007. “Government Activism and the Reorganization of American Civic Democracy.” In The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism, ed. Pierson, Paul and Skocpol, Theda. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Skowronek, Stephen. 2006. “The Reassociation of Ideas and Purposes: Racism, Liberalism, and the American Political Tradition.” American Political Science Review 100(3): 385–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Mark. 2007. The Right Talk: How Conservatives Transformed the Great Society into the Economic Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Soss, Joe, Houser, Linda, Fording, Richard C., and Schram, Sanford F.. 2011. “The Organization of Discipline: From Performance Management to Perversity and Punishment.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soss, Joe, Schram, Sanford F., Houser, Linda, and Fording, Richard C.. 2010. “The Third Level of U.S. Welfare Reform: Governmentality under Neoliberal Paternalism.” Citizenship Studies 14(6): 739–754.Google Scholar
Spring, Joel. 2005. Conflict of Interest: The Politics of American Education, 5th ed.Boston: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Stone, Deborah. 2002. Policy Paradox and Political Reason. 2nd ed. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Taylor, William. 2004. The Passion of My Times: An Advocate's Fifty-Year Journey in the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Da Capo Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, William. 2006. Testimony before the Commission on No Child Left Behind, the Aspen Institute, May 9.Google Scholar
Teles, Steven. 2009. The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Teske, Paul. 2009. “President Bush and the U.S. Department of Education: The Texas Mafia, Scientific Education Policy, and No Child Left Behind.” In Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Powers? President George W. Bush's Influence over Bureaucracy and Policy, ed. Provost, Colin and Teske, Paul. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Toch, Thomas. 1991. In the Name of Excellence: The Struggle to Reform the Nation's Schools, Why it's Failing, and What Should Be Done. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tonry, Michael. 1995. Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Traiman, Susan. 2006, Testimony to the Commission on No Child Left Behind, the Aspen Institute, Hearing on Assessing the Quality and Consistency of State Standards, August 31.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Education. 2009. “Race to the Top Program: Executive Summary.” November.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Education. 2010a. State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act; Volume IX—Accountability Under NCLB: Final Report. Washington, DC: 2010.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Education. 2010b. State and Local Implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act: Volume VIII—Teacher Quality under NCLB: Final Report. Washington, DC: 2010.Google Scholar
U.S. General Accounting Office. 2000. Title I Program: Stronger Accountability Needed for Performance of Disadvantaged Students. Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office, 2000.Google Scholar
Vinovskis, Maris. 1999. “Do Federal Compensatory Education Programs Really Work? A Brief Historical Analysis of Title I and Head Start.” American Journal of Education 107: 187–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vinovskis, Maris. 2009. From a Nation at Risk to No Child Left Behind. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Vogel, David. 1989. Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loïc. 1999. Prisons of Poverty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loïc. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Weaver, Vesla M. 2007. “Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy.” Studies in American Political Development 21: 230–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Western, Bruce. 2006. Punishment and Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Amy. 2007. Written Testimony, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, March 6.Google Scholar
Wong, Kenneth, and Sunderman, Gail. 2007. “Education Accountability as a Presidential Priority: No Child Left Behind and the Bush Presidency.” Publius: the Journal of Federalism 37: 333–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar