Ilana Horn: 🧵A brief history of education reform in the 21st century US: ◾ GW Bush dismantles the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, creating the Institute of Educational Sciences with the call to create a "science of education," with the "Gold Standard" of RCTs

🧵A brief history of education reform in the 21st century US: ◾ GW Bush dismantles the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, creating the Institute of Educational Sciences with the call to create a "science of education," with the "Gold Standard" of RCTs

◾ GW Bush introduces most far-reaching federal education legislation in US history, No Child Left Behind, based on the so-called "Texas Miracle" where test-based accountability "improved outcomes" in student learning [1] ◾Test-based accountability now required for schools that want federal funds

◾ Because tests are expensive and had primarily been developed in mathematics and literacy, schools that "underperform" on those measures are subject to sanctions are reconstitution ◾ The most widely available and least expensive tests are norm-based tests (as opposed to standards based tests)...

◾ ... and the "norming group" is typically white, middle class, English speaking students. ◾ As a result of this instrumentation, schools with high numbers of students outside of those norms "underperform," while schools whose students fall within those demographics "succeed"

◾ Obama appoints Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education, a person whose primary expertise was basketball before he oopsed his way into the Chicago Public Schools with no prior educational experience

◾ When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is renewed (where NCLB was spawned), Duncan injects steroids into the accountability mechanisms through Race to the Top, requiring states to link ALL TEACHERS' RATINGS to these inadequate accountability tools.

(This is where PE teachers did math lessons because they were worried that the low math scores of their students will affect their ratings.) ◾ Meanwhile, the wide-availability of test scores and crap sites like "good schools" spread narratives about schools as "good" and "bad" based on limited data

👆An enthusiastic 22 year old named Nathan enters the teaching profession… 😬

We had a special issue with historical perspectives on NCLB in HEQ a few years ago. Most (but not all) of the relevant articles in it are open access. Disclosure: I committed history in that issue. Or co-committed it with Christian Ydesen.

History of Education Quarterly: Volume 62 - Special Issue on the 20th Anniversary of No Child Left Behind | Cambridge Corewww.cambridge.org Cambridge Core - History of Education Quarterly - Volume 62 - Special Issue on the 20th Anniversary of No Child Left Behind

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