The Washington Consensus

One of the ironies of the No Child Left Behind act is that it sets basic requirements on how many students in a school need to be considered proficient, but then gives proficiency-setting authority to the states. As more than one commentator has pointed out, if a state wishes to avoid having lots of schools declared failing this creates an incentive for states to set the standards low. According to a report from an organization called Education Sector, Wisconsin has played this game particularly skillfully, better than any other state. (Click here for a Journal-Sentinel article on this report.)

A recent commentary describes the "Washington Consensus" on education. According to the authors, the Washington Consensus has three big ideas:

1. The most important goal is closing racial and economic achievement gaps.
2. Schools can overcome the challenges of poverty.
3. External pressure and tough accountability are critical to school improvement.

Both the people behind Education Sector and the two authors of this commentary have embraced the Washington Consensus. It is easy to understand the motivations behind this consensus: for too long the education of low-income and minority students was neglected, schools used poverty as an excuse for poor results, and there was no accountability for outcomes. In the historical context, the Washington Consensus was a necessary corrective. Yet in many ways, it is as unbalanced as the ideas it replaced.

By emphasizing gaps, does it encourage neglect of the best students? For example, a school where 100% of the white students and 80% of the black students are proficient has a wider gap than one where 50% of each race is proficient. By putting such emphasis on the school's responsibility, does it deemphasize the student's responsibility for his or her education? In its emphasis on penalizing schools, will it discourage the best educators from working at schools likely to be at risk?

Perhaps it is time for a more nuanced version of the Washington Consensus. It could emphasis the absolute achievement of all students. It could use the massive amount of data being collected to start to break out the effect of schools on achievement. It might recognize that asking states to set proficiency levels is silly: the educational requirements for success do not vary from state to state. Until that is done, I am not sure that Wisconsin game-playing is all that important.
The indignation reflected in the report