When the Education Trust speaks, newspapers listen. Recently, I wrote to celebrate the new draft of legislation by Rep. George Miller that would broaden the way schools can demonstrate satisfactory progress. Mr. Miller, the leader of the House Democrats on education policy, would allow schools to measure outcomes in subjects like civics, not just reading and math. There are strong opponents of this reform. Kati Haycock, President of the Education Trust, writes:

No federal education law has been more misunderstood than No Child Left Behind. But despite all the complaints, no federal law has accomplished more for the poor and minority children historically shortchanged by our education system.

While we continue to press for closing the achievement gap and preparing all students for the real-world challenges of college and career, the federal law must maintain a laser-like focus on ensuring that all students are proficient in reading and math. Congress should resist calls to add more measures to the current accountability system that would provide “extra credit” for schools failing to meet the needs of their students in these two fundamental subject areas.

The “adequate yearly progress” standard was designed to be easily understood by parents, educators and policymakers. The clarity of the accountability system shouldn’t be muddied by variables that let schools off the hook for poor performance in reading and math, even for just one group of students. Instead, Congress should provide funding for the additional supports and resources that research has identified as critical to academic success — strong, effective teachers empowered by rich curricula tied to high-quality assessments of student learning — and target those resources to the schools that need the most help.

The Washington Post masthead editorial echoes her, whether intentionally or not. So does Fred Hiatt in his Post column, and the New York Times in two masthead editorials. The first:

The country’s largest teachers’ union, the politically powerful National Education Association, would like to see the law gutted. Fortunately, the chairman of the House education committee, George Miller, Democrat of California, has resisted those pressures. Even so, his proposed changes in the law’s crucial accountability provisions, put forth in a draft version of the House bill, may need to be recast to prevent states from backing away from the central mission of the law.

Some critics warn that one provision might allow schools to mask failures in bedrock subjects like reading and math by giving them credit for student performance in other subjects or on so-called alternate indicators.

And the Times repeats these points today, citing the President of the Business Roundtable, John Castellani, who testified against “troubling provisions in a draft reauthorization bill that would allow schools to mask failure in teaching crucial subjects like reading and math by giving them credit for student performance in other subjects or on alternate measures of performances.”

The position of the The Education Trust and Business Roundtable has a legitimate place in the debate. But there is certainly another side, which the Times and Post ought to consider. Considerable evidence now shows that: (a) schools are cutting important subjects to meet the federal testing requirements in reading and math; and (b) students aren’t really reading or understanding math better when they perform better on the required tests. In fact, the more a state improves its scores on the NCLB-required tests, the more its scores fall on other, independent assessments of literacy and math. Students would actually read better if they knew some history and civics and had a sense of why it is important to be able to read the news and write about social issues.

I’m with those (including Senator Harkin–see yesterday–and George Miller, who is a key US Representative) who decry the narrowing of the American school curriculum in recent years. The reason seems to be relentless pressure to raise math and reading test scores. Social studies, science, arts, music, physical education, extracurricular activities, and service-learning appear to have suffered.

It’s not self-evident that this is a problem–maybe we should focus our attention on attaining universal numeracy and literacy. But I believe that the narrowing is harmful because education should have broader and higher goals than basic academic skills. Besides, Senator Harkin is correct that activities like music and service motivate kids and keep them in school.

But what to do about the narrowing problem? I can think of six policy options, none perfect:

1. Fund particular programs or types of programs, such as arts or service. Drawbacks: The amounts of money will be small and may not make much difference for most kids. Small programs use up a lot of their funds on administration. We can’t trust the worst school systems to spend the money well or devote it to the kids who need it most.

2. Increase general funding for education, on the theory that dollars are fungible; if we cover fixed costs like facilities or special education, schools will spend more money on arts, service, etc. Drawback: They may not actually spend the money for those purposes, or use it well. Also, money is not the only limited resource; equally important is time.

3. Hold schools accountable for providing specific educational opportunities, such as school newspapers, music, or service-learning classes. Drawbacks: This means extra layers of accountability for schools that are already buried in rules. Unless these mandates come with cash, the burden is particularly unfair.

4. Hold schools accountable for student outcomes in areas like civics, arts, and health. Drawbacks: This means an extra layer of tests. Besides, tests don’t always measure the impact of programs; they may reflect students’ home backgrounds. And it’s hard to develop high-stakes tests of attitudes and values.

5. Relax federal tests and rules that interfere with broad education. Drawbacks: Civil rights organizations will–with some justification–complain that relaxing the rules will allow schools again to tolerate poor outcomes for minority kids, poor kids, and disabled kids.

6. Avoid federal law altogether and focus on the states or school districts. Drawbacks: It’s very hard to organize systematic change in 50 states, let alone tens of thousands of districts.

I’m on Capitol Hill at a meeting of United Voices for Education, a group organized by Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul, and Mary) to support the aspects of education that are overlooked in current policy: the arts, civic and character education, extracurriculars, service-learning, physical education, and the like. Senator Harkin addressed us. His views matter because he chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and serves on the Senate authorization committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The Senator said that he voted for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) but now wants to work with UVE to improve it. He said, “we’re all concerned about the imbalances … that have come about.” He cited the recent study by the Center for Education Policy that found cuts in social studies, arts, and other subjects that are not tested under NCLB. “I find this extremely disturbing,” he said. “For many children, what motivates them and keeps them in school is things like music, theater, clubs, and field trips.”

This is a view of youth as assets. But Senator Harkin said that he voted for NCLB because it addressed the “savage inequalities” identified by Jonathan Kozol. He cited Kozol as saying that the learning abilities of disadvantaged kids have been “destroyed” by the time they reach secondary school. This is partly because of inadequate funds and partly because schools discriminate against minorities and disabled students. However, if teenagers are already crippled by a lack of early support, then why will they flourish if we give them positive opportunities? If school systems are discriminatory and inequitable, why should we trust them with funds for positive opportunities like arts and service?

Senator Harkin said that he wanted to amend NCLB to provide “appropriate assessments” that measure social, behavioral, and mental health services in the community and the school as well as (or instead of?) student performance. He also wanted federal funds for elementary school counselors.

In general, the Senator said that NCLB requires more money. It has been underfunded by a total of $56 billion so far (using the original authorization levels as the benchmark). He is obviously most comfortable with federal funding for school facilities (to fix “our crummy infrastructure”) and nutrition programs. These forms of federal support do not require testing, control over curriculum, or accountability; they merely reduce local schools’ costs. Senator Harkin claimed that our system is the best in the world for creativity, thanks to local control; our weakness is the inequality of funding. Thus the main federal role should be to support facilities.

He argued that we can rely less on standardized tests because we can trust teachers to assess the kids in their class, just as we ought to allow judges to set sentences. Assessments, he said, should be holistic and should take into account behavior and values as well as knowledge. “What good is it if someone is intelligent, but they don’t respect other people’s views? I don’t mean to get philosophical, but I think one of the things that’s happened in this country is, we’ve lost respect for other people’s views.”

I detect a tension in the Senator’s remarks between a redistributive progressivism of the Jonathan Kozol variety and respect for teenagers and teachers. I also detect a tension between trusting schools and teachers and viewing them as discriminatory. Saying that schools need more funds for facilities bypasses those tensions, and it is a valid point. I’m not sure, however, that it is an adequate approach to education policy.

I think my friend and sometime colleague Deborah Hellman has the best response to the Supreme Court’s ruling last week on school desegregation. The Chief Justice, in his opinion that will block most efforts to integrate public schools, wrote, “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Debbie notes that there are two meanings of the word “discriminate.” It can simply mean to make distinctions: “For example, insurers routinely discriminate between potential insurance customers on the basis of the risk each poses of making a claim against the insurer during the policy period.” Also, schools “discriminate” among kids by giving free school lunches only to poor children. Many conservatives seem to feel that it would be perfectly appropriate to mix students by economic class, which would require making discriminations by family income. The Census Bureau, as Debbie notes, “discriminates” by recording people’s race.

“Discrimination” can also mean an invidious bias: an expression of disrespect, an attempt to harm, or an unfair treatment. America has always discriminated against Black kids in this bad sense of the word. That was blatant in the days of segregation, but it is also obvious today. For instance, we would not allow large numbers of white children to attend schools like the ones that enroll the African American teenagers I’m working with this summer–huge institutions with rapid turnover of teachers, where frequent fights draw large crowds that the security guards cannot control.

Justice Roberts says that you cannot cure “discrimination” (which presumably means invidious bias) by “discriminating” as the schools in Seattle and Louisville have done (i.e., by making school assignments to increase integration). He could be making an empirical claim. In other words, he could mean that to pay any attention to race will reinforce racist stereotypes. This empirical theory is likely false; in any case, it doesn’t follow from the Constitution. Elected local school boards ought to be able to adopt other views and strategies.

Alternatively, Justice Roberts could mean that attempting to integrate schools racially is discriminatory in the invidious sense. State discrimination in that sense violates the 14th Amendment. But, as Hellman writes, “racial balancing policies do not express that some students are less morally worthy than others or that their concerns are less important. Rather a policy of racial balancing expresses that a racial mixed environment is educationally useful and an important public good.”

Brown v. Board of Education banned racial discrimination in schools, where “discrimination” meant policies that both expressed contempt for Black children and harmed them. Those policies were rooted in hatred and violated the 14th Amendment. Last week’s decision banned well-intentioned and plausible ways to improve the quality of public education by mixing kids of different races. To say that Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District was confused about “discrimination” would be charitable.