More money for less accountability? I don't think so!(Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right)(Book review)

Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right

By Richard Rothstein, Rebecca Jacobsen and Tamara Wilder

Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College Press, 2008, $19.95; 263 pages.

Some may take this wrong-headed book seriously, given the credentials of lead author Richard Rothstein, former New York Times education columnist, all-around smarty, and veteran maneuverer on the education-policy chessboard. Its timing is deft, too, as it savages the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and offers recommendations for its overhaul (overthrow, really) just as a new administration and Congress face its reauthorization.

Rothstein and a pair of junior colleagues advance three central theses, all of which are wrong--though they'll appeal to a strange alliance of progressive educators and (up to a point) conservative Republicans.

First, and most NCLB-relevant, "We should get the federal government out of the business of monitoring education at the school or student level." But it's not just Uncle Sam who should quit judging performance by students (and schools and districts) via "short-term test score measures of basic skills." So, too, should the states. The authors view all such accountability measures as agents of educational corruption.

That's because, thesis two, education has in their judgment eight "fundamental goals," of which "basic academic knowledge and skills in reading, writing, math, science and history" are but one. The others include physical and emotional health, social skills, work ethic, appreciation of the arts, and community responsibility. These are equally important, insist the authors, and must all be incorporated into any self-respecting accountability system.