Jonathan Kozol on No Child Left Behind

Bitter complaints about the No Child Left Behind Act have been at least as common as gray squirrels in Central Park for some time now, yet I suspect that it would take at least a decade to say all the bad things that ought to be said about this wretched piece of legislation. Like several other efforts from the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act began as a well-intentioned attempt at a new direction and ended up making things worse. My teacher friends tell me that the extra layer of bureaucracy has only added to the pressure to teach to the tests. But all of this has been said elsewhere with more vigor and clarity.

Salon.com has posted an interview with Jonathan Kozol, a man who managed to make Bernard Goldberg's big list of America-ruiners. Yet his criticisms of the status quo seem to line up with those of more libertarian critics, like John Taylor Gatto. I'm sure that Gatto and Kozol would find ways to disagree about what an ideal system would look like, but I'm amazed at the degree of agreement among the opponents of the plan. I found a few of his comments in the interview especially enlightening. (I've not read any of his books, so I can't vouch for his constructive suggestions.)

For example, when asked about his suggested provision to the No Child Left Behind Act (that students at bad schools be allowed to transfer to other, better districts), Kozol responds:

The idea of the provision is that a child's parents should be able to transfer the child to a successful school in their district if the child's school has proven to be a hopeless failure. The trouble is, there aren't enough schools in overwhelmingly poor and minority inner-city districts to which a child can transfer. So less than 3 percent of eligible kids have transferred during the years since No Child Left Behind came into effect.

I proposed that the transfer provision be amended not only to permit but to require states to make cross-district transfers possible -- so that a student in the South Bronx could be transferred to Bronxville, which is, I have tested in my car, only about a 12-minute drive. It would be a very simple amendment to add and it would drive a mighty blow against the deepening re-segregation of our urban schools, without making any reference to race. Justice Kennedy, in his partial concurrence, pointed out that strategies like these, which are race-neutral, would certainly be constitutional.

What sort of thinking could possibly block such a hopeful provision? The most likely answer is that it's the same "neighborhood school" thinking that is helping to re-segregate public schools in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. Politicians know that they can gain middle-class votes and campaign money if they can protect the wealthier school districts from the less desirable students. In the long run, however, this strategy is terrible: unbalanced school districts end up with some good schools while others turn into money pits which can hardly retain teachers or even move a majority of students through to graduation. The situation must surely be worse when an entire school district is struggling. De facto segregation - not strictly by race, but rather by class - is returning before our eyes. I hope that when the next wave of education reformers moves beyond No Child Left Behind, they will find a way to reverse this awful trend.

St. Paul, Mars Hill, and Cultural Engagement

The new issue of Touchstone is out and, as usual there are several exciting articles in it. The first one to catch my eye was by Russell Moore and entitled "Retaking Mars Hill." Unfortunately, it's not up on the website yet. Check out the print edition if you can.

Moore begins by discussing the two common modes by which Christians engage popular culture. At different times in my life, I've participated in both. "Off-brand" engagement replicates what's going on in the mainstream with "people slightly less talented but more in love with Jesus." The other model ("South Park Evangelicals") tends to sneer at the more obvious Christian subculture while falling into a cooler and more stylish version of what they clearly deplore.

The article contains a dig at Derek Webb, who was one of my long-time favorite artists and whose music I often find to be powerful and challenging. I will quote from the article:

The younger, cooler wave of Evangelicals would never fall for a Christian version of the Backstreet Boys. . . Instead they consume anti-consumerist acts, such as Derek Webb.

Webb has traveled the country with religious leftist Jim Wallis preaching against the "market-oriented" and "legalistic" tendencies of contemporary conservative Protestantism. He sings songs mocking an Evangelical subculture in which "they'll know us by the T-shirts that we wear."

Of course, Webb is making a killing selling CDs, downloadable songs, and, yes, Derek Webb T-shirts. One has to work a little harder for his nickel among the soul-patched Evangelicals, but the market is still there.

I think this diatribe is a bit unfair to Mr. Webb, who is indeed a talented musician and whose intentions have always seemed good to me. His album She Must and Shall Go Free is on my short list of truly worthwhile Christian rock albums. However, Mr. Moore is certainly correct about the attitudes of a segment of the fanbase and its ineffective attempts to break out of the Christian subculture.

From this point onwards, Moore's article really shines. He examines Paul's speech on Mars Hill, so often used as an example of culturally relevant missions work, and concludes that Paul had a completely different purpose in mind.

Paul did not start speaking in Athens with a "common ground" idea of a generic god, and then reason along to Jesus. He started with the gospel of Jesus of Nazareth, proclaiming among the Gentile philosophers exactly what he had proclaimed among the Jewish rabbis: that God had raised him from the dead.

. . .

Moreover, the very nature of Paul's message was an affront to the ideological underpinnings of Athenian culture. He constantly returns to the resurrection of the body. Nothing was more alien to Epicurean and Stoic thought, both of which sought to combat the fear of death by separating the prison of the body that dies from the spirit that survives.

Thus, "cultural engagement" is not primarily about "building bridges." Moore affirms that pop-culture is ubiquitous, but argues that we must also acknowledge that whatever common grace we find in it is "twisted and perverted by human rebellion." This perversion cannot be subtly manipulated into classical Christian doctrine; rather, the gospel of Christ always stands in contrast to the gospels of popular culture. In Moore's words, "[w]e connect with sinners in the same way Christians always have: by telling an awfully freakish-sounding story about a man who was dead, and isn't anymore, but whom we'll all meet face-to-face in judgment."

Moore's central concern in this article is that attempts to emphesize the "cultural relevance" of the gospel so often tend to downplay its otherworldly strangeness. It is a call to remember to "preach beyond the cool."

Yes, it's terribly easy to sneer at the unsophisticated attempts of well-meaning Christians to create family-friendly copies of mainstream cultural phenomena. But equally well-meaning Derek Webb fans or readers of Relevant Magazine must keep in mind that a firm commitment to the full gospel story is their only defense against becoming the very thing which they so consistently protest.

Welcome Statement

This blog exists because certain posts will be graded for a class I am taking. The posts which I intend to submit for grades will receive the label "American Political Thought and Practice." However, if I'm going to create a space for my voice on the Internet, I might as well make use of it. Therefore, I will be submitting other thoughts for the consideration of the casual internet user who has little to no authority to grade my work. These posts will be labeled appropriately.

I suppose I ought to say something about my general perspective on significant events. I believe that human cultures are the foundations upon which all political systems must rest. A sick or unstable culture will be unable to sustain even the most well-designed government. On the other hand, a strong and vital cultural identity can withstand brutal tyranny from any quarter. I hope to expand upon this thought in the future, but I mention it now because it is the lens through which I tend to view most other issues.