Joe Biden is lighting up the West Wing with his incandescent smile and backslapping bonhomie. We're seeing a reeling economy, a debate over a stimulus plan that includes billions for schools, and an emerging fight over standardized testing. You'd be forgiven for thinking we've returned to 2009. But it's 2021—although, as Yogi Berra might say, "it's déjà vu all over again."
Just as the course of Obama's first presidential term was in many ways defined by how his administration dealt with the country's economic crisis during its first six months, the Biden administration gets underway confronting a dire economic emergency created by the coronavirus pandemic. Revisiting the history of 12 years ago can help inform us about current realities and draw lessons that will—let's hope—help us avoid making the mistakes that transpired back then, especially in terms of education policy.
School Funding at the Center of Recovery
In both Obama and Biden's cases, schools were (and now are) at the center of their respective recovery plans. As part of the $979 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009, $100 billion was earmarked for K–12 schools—at the time, a staggering amount of money. It's important to remember, though, why exactly this funding was routed to schools.
Amidst the economic calamity brought about by the bursting of the housing bubble, private sector unemployment spiked. It was clear public sector layoffs would soon follow because state and local revenue plummeted. As it was, the unemployment rate nearly doubled in 2009, peaking at 10 percent in October, and schools were looking at laying off thousands of teachers and other school staff. Schools' ARRA money was meant to stave off this job-loss apocalypse—which it did, according to a 2012 analysis by the Center on Education Policy (CEP).
But educators were bombarded with contradictory messages about the funding: Spend it fast but not too fast; spend on things that work, but not on recurring expenses because the money is a one-time thing.
For the remainder of Obama's first term, administration officials would point to ARRA money as their investment in schools. Rather than increasing funding for formula grant mainstays like Title I and IDEA, they preferred to direct money to competitive grants like the Race to the Top program.
Biden Goes Big
By contrast, President Biden is going bigger with school funding. A lot bigger. At $1.9 trillion in total funding, his COVID relief package more than doubles the ARRA outlay. Biden learned the lesson of the Obama years: While ARRA was a huge amount of money at the time and enough to forestall an economic depression, it wasn't large enough to revive the economy, and led to a jobless recovery. And unlike with ARRA, the $170 billion for education in the relief package isn't just a means to a particular end (to shore up school budgets and save educator jobs), but the centerpiece of Biden's plan to control COVID, reopen schools, and return to semi-normalcy.
What educators should now watch out for is a redux of two Obama-era arguments certain policy makers raised last time.
1. This funding is sufficient for schools (so don't come back for more any time soon). Current discretionary funding for federal education programs is still $7 billion below what it was in FY11, adjusted for inflation, according to the Committee for Education Funding's budget analysis of the FY21 education budget. So one-shot injections of funds, no matter how big, don't make up for lack of sustained investments over time.
2. This funding should be spent on innovative reforms. Uh … no. This funding is specifically to address the challenges of the pandemic emergency, providing for immediate needs like PPE, improved ventilation, socially distanced classrooms, technology, and hiring nurses and counselors. That's it. It is not some extra payment to make up for years of underfunding. And the middle of a crisis isn't the time to try some experiments and create even more classroom disruptions. Not while educators are trying to keep students engaged and safe—and keep staff supported.
Tensions Over Testing
The brewing fight over state testing also hearkens back to 2009. Back then, the Obama administration used the ARRA funding, in the form of Race to the Top, to promote states' adoption of the Common Core standards and push for teacher-evaluation systems that relied heavily on student testing results, even as the standards were still being implemented. The question now is whether the U.S. Department of Education should—for the second year in a row—offer a blanket waiver from federal testing requirements this school year. And whether any state tests that are administered will be used for accountability purposes.
The underlying issues around this debate—the purpose and use of state tests— remain as difficult as they were 12 years ago. The House and Senate education committees' Democratic chairs insist that the states be required to administer standardized tests to provide vital information about student achievement during the pandemic. They point to the absence of state testing last year and the forced postponement of NAEP this school year as further need for proceeding this spring.
Many educators take a different view, believing that the state tests aren't necessary this year to affirm what an array of local assessments, grades, and teacher observations already show—traumatized students don't learn as well or as much in a virtual learning environment, or when schools and businesses are shuttered because more than 400,000 Americans have lost their lives to a transmissible disease. These educators also believe that the NAEP cancellation isn't an argument for continuing with state tests, but an additional proof point of the nearly insurmountable logistical problems of administering large-scale assessments in such a challenging environment.
As of this writing, Education Secretary-nominee Miguel Cardona hasn't been confirmed by the Senate. But at his hearing, he said that he didn't favor a one-size-fits-all testing approach or students coming to school solely for the purpose of taking a test, and that states should have the opportunity to weigh in on how to test and use the results. He also said that state assessments are useful in targeting support to students most in need. My hunch is that there won't be any blanket waiver like last year, but that the Department will be favorably disposed to individual state requests. What the Biden administration should try to avoid is appearing to use standardized tests as a "gotcha" with teachers and schools. This is what happened in the 2009–2010 school year, straining relations between the Department and educators—a tension that lasted until nearly the end of the Obama administration.
Avoiding Missteps?
How Biden supports schools in responding to the pandemic in the next six months will set the direction and priorities for education for the remainder of his term. Fortunately, he has a roadmap from hard-earned experience of the last administration to take office amid a national crisis. This should help him avoid the missteps of 2009—if he takes the lessons to heart.
