NSBA is urging Congress to improve NCLB

The Senate and House education committees have held dozens of hearings over the past few months on just about every aspect of the five-year-old program, and both committee chairs promise to introduce their bills by the end of the summer.

“NSBA urges Con­gress to amend the current law to ease the implementation burdens on local school boards and to focus more on assistance, rather than punitive sanctions, while maintaining the core principles of the law to improve achievement for all students,” said Federal Relations Director Reggie Felton.

At the request of the committees, NSBA submitted legislative language on how Congress should address specific problems with the law, based on the more than 40 recommendations NSBA already proposed. Among other things, these changes would improve the way adequate yearly progress is calculated, allow more flexibility in test participation, expand the use of alternate assessments for students with disabilities and English language learners, and give districts more options with regard to the school choice and supplemental service requirements.

NSBA’s recommendations are incorporated into the No Child Left Behind Improvements Act (H.R.648), which was re-introduced in the 110th Congress by Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).

The bill’s co-sponsors include Reps. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), Thaddeus McCotter (R-Minn.), Charlie Melancon (D-La.), Todd Platts (R-Pa.), and Steven Rothman (D-N.J.)

Another 108 members of the House and 29 senators have co-sponsored NCLB bills that contain one or more of NSBA’s recommendations.

Members of NSBA’s advocacy staff have met with many of these lawmakers and asked them to urge the education committee chairs to include these provisions in their bills or as floor amendments.

NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant also pushed for NSBA’s proposals for improving NCLB at a meeting May 23 with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other members of the Senate’s Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee.

Following the meeting, Bryant said she was impressed with the congressional leaders’ “commitment to move away from punitive measures, target the low-performing schools, remove the current mislabeling, provide incentives for those schools making progress, increase support for professional development, and address the challenging issues around teacher quality.”

In urging Congress to complete action on the NCLB reauthorization this year, Bryant said, “We simply cannot afford to have our local schools and school districts subjected to this current system even one more year or we can expect further erosion of the public’s confidence in our schools, as well as significantly reduced credibility with this current Congress.”

To bolster NSBA’s advocacy efforts on the Hill, NSBA has asked local school boards to pass resolutions urging members of Congress to co-sponsor H.R.648, and so far, 146 boards have done so. Members of Congress will be much more likely to support NSBA’s bill when their local constituents take formal actions to endorse it.

NSBA has joined with five other national education groups to endorse a joint statement that calls for basic changes in NCLB, including a redesign of the federal accountability framework to improve public schools rather than abandon them; valid, reliable, unbiased multiple assessment systems; and helpful interventions, rather than punitive sanctions.