Is "No Child Left Behind" Working?
NCLB Watchdog: Jack Jennings shaped federal education policy for decades on Capitol Hill; now he has a new role. Photograph by Danuta Otfinowski for NRTA Live & Learn.
Growing up in an Irish Catholic household in Chicago, Jack Jennings — founder and head of the Center on Education Policy — could scarcely have imagined he would one day be an eminence grise in U.S. public education. The “Three Ps” rule encapsulated the professional options for ethnic male Chicagoans: Priest, Policeman, or Politician. After a 5-year stint in the seminary, Jennings embarked on a variation on the last professional category, working as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill. Over a career that spanned more than a quarter of a century, he became one of the most powerful shapers of federal education policy. “I observed him in action, and he was remarkable,” says Jim Kohlmoos, president of the National Education Knowledge Industry Information Association and former Clinton administration official. “He knew every technicality and both sides of the issue. And boy, did people stop and listen to what he had to say.”
People are still listening to Jennings, now 63, despite his departure from Capitol Hill more than a decade ago. From his perch at the Center on Education Policy, he has become one of the foremost experts on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the watershed that has left a lasting imprint on U.S. public education. Any PTA parent can tell you the central tenets of NCLB: Students are taking plenty of high-stakes tests and schools pay a penalty when their kids don't meet performance targets. Except, not every student's exam score counts in the evaluation of a school's performance (limited English speakers and learning-disabled students are sometimes not included). Figuring out which underperforming schools are actually sanctioned is befuddling (it depends in part on whether the federal government is pouring money into the institution). All told, grasping the impact of the most influential education initiative of the last few decades can seem like a mission impossible.
But it's one that Jennings has pulled off. For the past 4 years, the Center has conducted annual reviews of NCLB, surveying all 50 chief state school officers and visiting schools across the country to gauge the law's on-the-ground impact. Jennings's knowledge not just of the fine print but also of NCLB's real-life implications has made him much in demand among journalists and school officials alike. Not everyone is enthusiastic that Jennings has become NCLB's interlocutor — some conservatives believe his Democratic background taints his analysis — but no one denies his influence. Jennings fields more than 500 press calls a year and the Center's Web site is projected to get 3 million hits in 2006.
Taking on the Law
“It is very good at showing what the problems are and weak at providing solutions,” the trim, bespectacled Jennings says in an interview in his immaculate office in Washington. He hastens to add that he believes the major goal of NCLB, that public schools should provide each student with a solid education, is the right one. That's not such a surprise, given his background. Jennings was an admirer of President John F. Kennedy (his face still lights up when he talks about one of his first major meetings on Capitol Hill, where he witnessed senators Teddy and Robert Kennedy hashing out a Great Society bill).
Jennings views the NCLB requirement that test scores be broken down by group, forcing schools to publicly document the performance of minority groups and low-income students, as a powerful and useful tool that could help the United States evolve into a more equitable society. “It's forced schools to concentrate on those students in a way they hadn't before,” says Jennings. But focusing attention on schools' deficiencies doesn't resolve them, he points out. He agrees with criticism that the law has been underfunded. As one op-ed piece he penned for the Washington Post in 2004 put it, “it takes more than testing and choice to turn a school around.”
Hot-Button Topics
While tracking and analyzing No Child Left Behind could easily occupy an army of researchers 24/7, it's not the only topic the Center monitors. Jennings has also unleashed his team on hot-button issues like determining the impact of high school exit exams and investigating whether federal funding for low-income schools reaches the intended recipients. Jennings is hoping to conduct a review of charter schools, but he has shied away from evaluating voucher systems and private institutions. “That's not where the kids are,” he says. “Eighty-eight percent are in public schools, and the populations that are growing, like Latinos, are being educated there.”
When Jennings created the Center, he planned to run it for a decade. Twelve years later, his life partner is eager for Jennings to make good on his promise to retire. Jennings leads a full life, traveling to locales as far away as Patagonia and studying foreign languages (he wants to be conversant in French, Spanish, and German by the age of 70). Still, he winces at the prospect of abandoning analysis and advocacy. “I'd hate to close the door and say goodbye,” he says. His own P profession — policy analyst and public advocate — turns out to be a hard one to leave behind.
About the Author
Alexandra Starr covers education and social issues for national magazines.
This article originally appeared in NRTA Live & Learn, Fall 2006.
