NCLB and the Competitiveness Agenda: Happy Collaboration or a Collision Course?

AMERICAN SCHOOLS have spent the last five years under the spotlight of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The statute's relentless push to close the racial achievement gap and pursue universal proficiency in reading and math has focused unprecedented attention on basic instruction. However, this push has also raised concerns about a slighting of high-achieving students and about inattention to advanced instruction and the dictates of national "competitiveness. " These concerns have taken on a more pressing cast in the past three years, a period backlit by Thomas Friedman's best seller, The World Is Flat, and by the growing recognition that modern communications, transportation, and financial markets have created an increasingly global economy in which high-level science, math, and language skills are crucial to national well-being. Of course, for all the popular attention that Friedman has garnered, his point is hardly new. Robert Reich, secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, made many of the same arguments in his influential 1992 book, The Work of Nations. The fears about China and India today are more than a little reminiscent of--and tinged with the same hysteria as--discussions of "Japan, Inc." in the 1980s. Nonetheless, the shrinking American manufacturing sector and the accelerating "off-shoring" of service jobs--including a growing number of white-collar positions--have sparked much concern about the rate at which America is producing engineers, scientists, and graduates conversant in multiple languages. In 2005 the National Academy of Sciences reported, "Having reviewed trends in the U.S. and abroad, the committee is deeply concerned that the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength. " (1) In 2006 ETS reported that 61% of opinion leaders identify math, science, and technology skills as the most important ingredients in determining whether the United States will continue to compete successfully in the global economy. (2) Addressing such concerns, the Bush Administration launched its "American Competitiveness Initiative" (ACI) in early 2006. The Administration announced at the time: The President has launched the ACI to help our students do better in math and science. We will train 70,000 high school teachers to lead Advanced Placement courses in math and science, bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms, and give early help to students who struggle with math. If we ensure America's children have the skills they need to succeed in life, they will ensure America succeeds in the world. (3) What does this new emphasis on competitiveness mean for schooling? Is it consistent with the requirements of No Child Left Behind that have so thoroughly dominated education policy for the past five years? Are the two agendas on a collision course? And what are the implications for the future of federal education policy? A BIT OF HISTORY Historically, there always has been an unavoidable tension between efforts to bolster American "competitiveness" (read: efforts to boost the performance of elite students, especially in science, math, and engineering) and those to promote educational equity. Champions of particular federal initiatives tend to argue that the two notions are complementary, but history shows that the ascendance of one tends to distract from attention paid to the other. For instance, the great investment of energy in high achievers in math, science, and language by the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 largely dissipated when the Johnson Administration and the Washington education community turned their attention to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the equity agenda of the Great Society. Congress enacted the NDEA at the height of the Cold War as a hurried response to the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik I. …