A leading conservative voice for education reform during Bush sr.’s tenure and into the 90s has had a revelation. Diane Ravitch, who served in Bush’s Department of Education, is currently a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and has become a leading figure in the movement against applying market-based logic to education reform and to re-vitalize our public schools. This movement is characterized primarily by a push-back against the absurd logic that propelled No Child Left Behind into “21st century education reform” status under George W. Bush. This logic was supported by a bipartisan Congress in 2001 and dominated the mindset of the previous administrations though it hadn’t resulted in major congressional action until 2002. On the topic of recent attempts to reform our education system, she asserts:

“Accountability, as written into federal law, was not raising standards but dumbing down the schools,” [Ravitch] writes. “The effort to upend American public education and replace it with something that was market-based began to feel too radical for me.”

“Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,” she said. “They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.”

Her input may continue to bear an increasing influence in Washington as the Obama administration continues its efforts to rectify our ailing public school system and as NCLB faces re-authorization in the coming year. On the issue of NCLB, Ravitch wrote in 2007 that:

Under the law, the states devise their own standards and their own tests. Based on the test results, every school is expected to make “adequate yearly progress” in grades three to eight so as to be on track to meet that goal of universal proficiency by 2014. Schools that do not meet their annual target for every group of students — as defined by race, poverty, language and disability status — are subject to increasingly onerous sanctions written into the federal law.

Schools that fail to meet their target for two consecutive years must offer their students the choice to go to a more successful public school; if they fail the following year, they must provide tutoring to their students. If the students continue to miss their target, the entire teaching and administration staff may be replaced, or the school may be turned over to state control, or it may be converted into a charter school.

Yet these tough sanctions thus far have been ineffective. Federal agencies report that only about 1 percent of eligible students take advantage of switching schools and fewer than 20 percent of eligibles receive extra tutoring.

In inner cities, where academic performance is weakest, only a handful of students move to successful schools because there are very few seats available to them. In rural America, choice is limited by the small number of other schools in the geographic area. Furthermore, neither research nor experience validates any of the “remedies” written into law. There is little evidence that failing schools improve if they are turned over to state control or converted to charter status.

No Child Left Behind can, however, be salvaged if policymakers recognize that they need to reverse the roles of the federal government and the states. In our federal system, each level of government should do what it does best. The federal government is good at collecting and disseminating information. The states and school districts, being closer to the schools, teachers and parents than the federal government, are more likely to be flexible and pragmatic about designing reforms to meet the needs of particular schools.

Her policy recommendations seem to have fallen upon attentive ears, as Education Secretary Arne Duncan seems to have echoed many of Ravitch’s concerns in a recent speech on the re-authorization of ESEA/NCLB:

NCLB helped expand the standards and accountability movement. Today, we expect districts, principals and teachers to take responsibility for the academic performance of their schools and students. We can never let up on holding everyone accountable for student success. That is what we are all striving for.

Until states develop better assessments—which we will support and fund through Race to the Top—we must rely on standardized tests to monitor progress—but this is an important area for reform and an important conversation to have.

I also agree with some NCLB critics: it unfairly labeled many schools as failures even when they were making real progress—it places too much emphasis on absolute test scores rather than student growth—and it is overly prescriptive in some ways while it is too blunt an instrument of reform in others.

But the biggest problem with NCLB is that it doesn’t encourage high learning standards. In fact, it inadvertently encourages states to lower them. The net effect is that we are lying to children and parents by telling kids they are succeeding when, in fact, they are not…

Yet to divulge working details of the policy transformation, Duncan and Obama have definitely latched onto the concerns emanating from the growing gap between American students and students in many other developed nations. Among the key tenets of the Obama administration’s re-framing of the education debate are the fair, respectable compensation of educators; increased control over reforms for state and local government; metering curriculum to include a wide range of focus areas as opposed to the narrowing to reading and math as supported by NCLB; and a system that ultimately focuses upon long-term success in high school graduation and college graduation:

So today I am calling on all of you to join with us to build a transformative education law that offers every child the education they want and need—a law that recognizes and reinforces the proper role of the federal government to support and drive reform at the state and local level.

Let’s build a law that respects the honored, noble status of educators—who should be valued as skilled professionals rather than mere practitioners and compensated accordingly.

Let us end the culture of blame, self-interest and disrespect that has demeaned the field of education. Instead, let’s encourage, recognize, and reward excellence in teaching and be honest with each other when it is absent.

Let us build a law that demands real accountability tied to growth and gain both in the individual classroom and in the entire school—rather than utopian goals—a law that encourages educators to work with children at every level, the gifted and the struggling—and not just the tiny percent near the middle who can be lifted over mediocre bar of proficiency with minimal effort. That’s not education. That’s game-playing tied to bad tests with the wrong goals.

Let us build a law that discourages a narrowing of curriculum and promotes a well-rounded education that draws children into sciences and history, languages and the arts in order to build a society distinguished by both intellectual and economic prowess. Our children must be allowed to develop their unique skills, interests, and talents. Let’s give them that opportunity.

Let us build a law that brings equity and opportunity to those who are economically disadvantaged, or challenged by disabilities or background—a law that finally responds to King’s inspiring call for equality and justice from the Birmingham jail and the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Let us build an education law that is worthy of a great nation—a law that our children and their children will point to as a decisive moment in America’s history—a law that inspires a new generation of young people to go into teaching—and inspires all America to shoulder responsibility for building a new foundation of growth and possibility.

This about-face is encouraging, to say the least but when coupled with the Obama administration’s strides in moving the debate about America’s public schools towards students and away from politicians, the about-face seems inordinately logical. It seems strange to consider such well-timed initiatives as inordinately logical, but when compared to the top-down imposition of rules, standards and sanctions created under NCLB, it is heartening for politicians and executive officials to be speaking to the concerns of parents and students rather than to the ideologies of isolated think-tankers. Maybe Ravitch isn’t so isolated in that think-tank after all.