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Public Education Policy and the Achievement Gap

President George W. Bush’s 2001 No Child Left Behind Law was the first federal education policy which explicitly attempted to address the so-called achievement gap between white and non-white students in America. By now it is well documented that children of color under perform academically compared to their white peers. Can any education policy hope to eliminate this achievement gap and guarantee equal educational outcomes for all?

Before examining the different education policy proposals and schools of thought, it might be more constructive to inspect the root causes of gaps in educational outcomes. No public policy can hope to correct a social problem if it’s not clear what exactly the problem is.

Yet, although you will find general consensus on the existence of an achievement gap, you will not find unanimous agreement on its causes. In the discourse on education policy, some have attributed the problem to unequal school funding systems, in which property values are linked to school support. Others have pointed out that increases in funding to the poorest schools has not yielded a corresponding increase in student academic performance. Therefore, they conclude that the problem in education policy is not under-funding, but rather a poorer quality of instruction at failing schools. This lower quality of instruction has been attributed to incompetent administration, unions protecting bad teachers, lack of accountability, and other factors.

So how can public education policy properly address these concerns? Certainly the first step is to guarantee equality in school funding. But it is clear from the evidence over the last 30 years that money is not the answer to improving educational outcomes. More money has consistently not corresponded with better academic results, nor with a narrowing of the achievement gap. Money in itself is not the answer.

It is possible, however, to address the question of instructional quality at the public policy level. The challenge is to move away from tired arguments about standards and accountability, which do little to deal with the underlying problems in failing schools. Indeed, the problem with our public education policy is not the we don’t expect enough; it’s that we don’t provide schools with the resources they need to accomplish the high standards to which we hope to hold them accountable.

This does not mean, once again, that the best education policy is one which funnels more and more money into the system. On the contrary, more money often only invites more corruption and has an adverse effect on educational outcomes. Instead, policy should focus more on how funds are spent in education. A good education policy should ensure that spending is focused on the classroom, not on the surrounding bureaucracy. Funds should be set aside to attract experienced, competent educators in the highest need areas. Money should be allocated for after school programs for the neediest children. Pre-kindergarten instruction should be offered to all. These minor changes in spending would constitute the most effective reform in education policy, without requiring increases in taxing or spending.

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