Drafts

I know two things about Maryville, Tennessee.  

1. It is home to the best beer brewed in the Volunteer State.

2. Former Senator Lamar Alexander was born and raised in Maryville, and having recently retired from public life, he once again calls it home. What I don't know, however, is how many of his neighbors realize he is the most influential figure in American public education today and will be for many years to come.^[1]

With that as my opening, I tried to work out a few paragraphs developing the connection between beer and education. Easy: the symposiums of antiquity and the gallons consumed in university towns across the country. Hard: using alcohol and education to describe the erratic nature of consensus that animates the American people and therefore, our policies. E.g. Prohibition lasted 15 years with both its start and especially, its end welcomed from sea to shining sea (except in these counties). Also lasting 15 years and enjoying broad, national consensus when passed as well as when replaced: The Nation's School Board during the years of No Child Left Behind.

Senator Alexander wrote the law that replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) cleared the Senate by a vote of 85-12. Not long after, Alexander shared remarks he called, "The Rise and Fall of the Nation's School Board."^[2]

For fifteen minutes, Alexander recounts nearly 40 years of education policy development and the interplay between the states and the federal government. Finally, he arrives at his main point which happens to be the main point of the law: “Schools are still a national issue, but there is a consensus that the issue is not to be resolved from Washington."

ESSA was signed into law seven years ago. Quick math tells us that it has now outlined the federal government's role in education for half as long as No Child Left Behind was in effect. As active as the Department of Education was on K-12 issues in the first half of the NCLB era, the Department of Education has been inactive since 2015. And, I don't know of anyone who is anticipating a flurry of action over the next eight years to make up the difference.^[3] My expectation is that Alexander would consider this a major accomplishment and satisfying vindication of the legislation's main argument.

Granted, this span of time has overlapped with the Trump presidency and the Covid pandemic, making it more difficult for lawmakers and advocates to coalesce around key priorities in an issue area as complicated as education. Still, the Democrats have controled the House and the Presidency and maintained 1-vote advantage in the Senate, so the cheery bipartisanship that preceded both the passage of NCLB and ESSA hasn't been a necessity to make changes.

That lack of action from Washington, though, was precisely the desired outcome of ending NCLB and disbanding the Nation's School Board. No one in Washington wanted the responsibility for reaching resolutions.^[4] Washington was out of ideas and out of energy and glad to make school policy for 50,000,000 children someone else's problem.

I don't view this as cynically today as I did in 2015. Having watched the train wreck that has been national politics and federal governance over the past few years, getting the core development of K-12 policy out of Washington could not have come at a better time.

Yes, state and local leaders have been far too slow in seizing the initiative for developing, implementing, evolving the improvements that Washington was unable to deliver. But coming out of the pandemic and in large part due to the pandemic, that is changing with a variety of initiatives and experiments that reflect the diversity of opinions and values Americans hold.

The next 40 years of education policy in America will owe a lot to Maryville's favorite son. I'll drink to that.