Policy as Cultural Construct: Policies are culturally bound, not neutral, both reflective of soci...
1. To write and enact policy, a governing body must name a problem and put in place rules and regulations to ensure a desired solution, but the problem lies in the fact that policymakers typically stand far outside of the communities they're impacting and "impart lenses for viewing the people they aim to address."
1.1. ANAR states that the average citizen is more educated than in previous generations, but continues with the fact that the average graduate is not as well education as the previous generation. This is in part due to the fact that schools are more inclusive and reporting data more accurately than ever before.
1.1.1. Critics of ANAR note that the apparent 'decline' in test scores as compared to other countries was not accurate, as those countries were more selective in who took the tests; it was also argued that SAT scores and basic skills had actually been on the rise and increased throughout the 1970s and 80s, particularly for poor and minority students.
1.1.1.1. 7 years after ANAR, a second federal report showed the opposite of what was claimed, with “steady or slightly improving trends” in student achievement.
1.1.2. It was not the 'Tide of Mediocrity' that was rising, rather the 'rising tide of school reports'.
1.1.3. In actuality, more students than ever were graduating from high school and attending college; top US students also led the world in academic achievement.
1.2. Money moves from the government through the “multilevel educational bureaucracy” to the schools.
1.3. Education policy is typically judged on its perceived success using ‘input’ and ‘output’ measurements and analysis... quantitative valued more than qualitative.
1.3.1. “Educational measurement practices have never effectively captured complex renderings of a child’s mind.”
1.4. While policymakers seek to "increase control through standards and accountability, teachers and their representatives have increasingly resisted what they see as misplaced blame and narrowing of curriculum. This resistance only hardens the resolve of policymakers to increase their levels of regulation and control, beginning the cycle anew."
1.5. “The naming of a problem occurs within dominant ideological patterns of thought.”
1.5.1. A Nation at Risk (1983) highlights the fact that the prominent authors/educators/experts included in this report viewed the American educational experience as insufficient, in decline, and our national security, as a result, at risk.
1.5.1.1. Two original authors of ANAR readily admitted that they did not undertake an objective inquiry into the state of the nation’s schools, but rather looked for facts to fit the narrative that there was a decline in education.
1.5.1.2. It was precisely the prominence of the report's authors and the fact that it was commissioned by the Dept. of Education that gave ANAR the necessary weight and authority to ensure national media attention where other major high-level reports had previously failed.
1.5.1.3. "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."
1.5.1.4. It was a 'moment of angst' about the state of the nation's schools, which found expression in the form of No Child Left Behind (2002) and Race to the Top (2009).
1.5.2. “Educational measurement practices have never effectively captured complex renderings of a child’s mind.”
1.5.3. The system was not to blame, rather the schools and educators themselves for this apparent decline in education excellency.
1.5.3.1. Evidently, however, even with low teacher pay, less total state funding, and less resources allocated to education, test scores amongst all groups had steadily improved.
2. Legend
2.1. Synthesized Ideas/Concepts/New Arguments
2.2. S. Stein: Policy as Cultural Construct
2.3. U.S. Dept. of Education: A Nation at Risk
2.4. J. Mehta: Escaping the Shadow of ANAR
2.5. A. Kamenetz: What ANAR Got Wrong and Right About U.S. Schools
3. A 'culture of policy' serves as an appropriation of a 'culture of poverty' and aims to identify universal characteristics inherent in the conversations and language of policy transmitted between governmental entities.
3.1. The same way in which the 'culture of poverty' serves as an obstacle to success in policy, 'the culture of policy' perpetuates structural inequities by focusing on the policy beneficiaries, instead, and how they deviate from the perceived and unstated norm.
3.1.1. A focus on the structural conditions of capitalistic society would reframe the policy problem, calling into question the causes rather than the results of an inequitable resource distribution system.
3.1.1.1. ANAR claimed that the U.S. had dismantled essential support systems, and in doing so, committed an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.
3.2. “The culture of policy influences the routines of practice through both regulatory mechanisms and categorization themes.”
3.2.1. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was fundamental in President Lyndon B. Johnson's 'war on poverty' and introduced the infamous Title I designation, which now signals notions of ability as much as it does eligibility.
3.2.1.1. At the time of ESEA, poverty was viewed as cultural and not systemic, which meant that government intervention was essential to help the disadvantaged “break-free” from their conditions.
3.2.1.2. It's assumed that students of this designation have limited potential and promise and as such, should have middle class norms imparted to extract these children from the 'culture of poverty' to which they were born.
3.2.1.3. As a result of the fragmented nature of school programming, Title I service delivery often segregated integrated schools.
3.2.1.4. Low test scores and poverty measures dictate eligibility and funding for those schools applying for the Title I designation.
3.2.1.4.1. Standardized tests flourished in part because of the need in Title I for “objective measurement of educational achievement.” If results were effective then funding and jobs would be removed.
3.2.1.4.2. “The poverty-line measure cannot capture the complexity of the concept or its meaning for resource-strapped children and families.”
3.3. This 'culture of policy' aims to define and remedy social problems by performing a corrective role in the lives of the country's deviant inhabitants.
3.3.1. Ironically in doing so, it incentivizes identifying, maintaining, and perpetuating the deviant populations, as institutions seek to maximize resources. As such, by avoiding reductive labels and thinking holistically about children's educational assets and needs, teachers and administrators find themselves out of compliance with policy mandates.
3.3.1.1. “When teachers believe that students can perform at high levels, they are more likely to provide rigorous and challenging learning opportunities than when they believe that students cannot perform at such levels.”
3.3.1.1.1. ANAR suggests that "educational institutions have lost sight of the basic purposes of schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain them."
3.3.2. Name-calling and labels such as 'Title I student' and 'EDY - Educationally Disadvantaged Youth' have become prominent as a result.
3.3.2.1. “The labels acquire students rather than students acquiring the labels.”
3.3.3. It's ultimately the "culturally deprived circumstances" of these deviant populations that dictate policy.
3.3.3.1. "The people of the United States need to know that individuals in our society who do not possess the levels of skill, literacy, and training essential to this new era will be effectively disenfranchised, not simply from the material rewards that accompany competent performance, but also from the chance to participate fully in our national life."
4. Education policy and its core intentions are a moving target and need to be culturally analyzed to determine intent and be best understood.
4.1. Education policy and the intent behind its language are a product of history and shift in accordance with the major movements and happenings of the time.
4.1.1. A Nation at Risk was situated at a moment in time where a major recession and budget deficits were occurring along with the fear that America was being surpassed by other countries in terms of educational and ultimately economic achievement.
4.1.1.1. The fearmongering in ANAR, which targeted international competition concerns, grabbed the attention of politicians who gladly jumped on the bandwagon in school reform of linking greater educational performance to various economic advantages.
4.1.1.2. ANAR was ultimately a matter of interpretation and contained rhetoric that was "apocalyptic, almost militaristic" in nature. Even so, the report, with its subjective and misplaced attitudes towards education at the time had a hugely positive effect on education in that it drew attention to a system that had for decades essentially flown under the radar in terms of funding and reform.
4.1.2. The agenda of the Reagan administration at the time of ANAR was to abolish the Department of Education, yet it commissioned the secretary of the department, Terrel Bell to do so. Instead of forming a committee to put himself out of a job, he helped to fashion the report in a way that promoted education excellence through increased federal funding.
4.2. "Cultural investigation lays bare implicit standards of normalcy"... narratives of power and dominant ideology are reflected in and dictated by policy, with deviant inhabitants serving as the populations to be 'fixed'.
4.2.1. "History is not kind to idlers. The time is long past when American's destiny was assured simply by an abundance of natural resources and inexhaustible human enthusiasm, and by our relative isolation from the malignant problems of older civilizations."
4.3. Purposeful details are included (and excluded) in rhetoric to policymakers by analysts to frame their arguments and to effectively coauthor policy with politicians and practitioners.
4.3.1. Professional researchers and academics argued that "the panel’s desire to capture attention for its report had led it to suspend the usual standards of scientific scrutiny in order to make its provocative claims.
4.4. The 'culture of poverty' attributed to anthropologist Oscar Lewis suggests that there are universal characteristics and presumed pathologies for people living in poverty that perpetuate their social conditions.
4.4.1. The theory serves as a means by which to blame people in poverty for their condition as opposed to a systematic failing of a democratic government meant to protect and provide opportunities for its most vulnerable populations.
4.4.1.1. A divide exists between teachers and politicians/parents, as opposed to left versus right, where many school reformers on the left and center-left have welcomed greater educator accountability as a means to use schools to break cycles of poverty.