Weighing the effects of federal educational policy on democracy: Reframing the discourse on high-stakes accountability

Abstract

The year 2013 marked the 30th anniversary of the report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. Its original release was the watershed for a series of federal policies that would increasingly undercut the local control of public schools. The crux of its argument was that public school achievement was declining, threatening the nation's economic preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation. Federal policy makers responded swiftly to the alleged "crisis" identified in the report by crafting a collection of recommendations to states for holding schools and districts accountable for producing educational "excellence." The report marked the moment at which federal education policy began to veer away from decades of social science research and welfare programs that acknowledged how powerfully social, cultural, political, and economic conditions determine schools' capacity for improvement (e.g., Coleman, 1966; Jencks et al., 1972). It also signaled the point at which the locus of power in public education began shifting increasingly into the hands of federal authorities.