Bush administration bends NCLB rules to promote tutoring

In an effort to get thousands more poor children into tutoring, the Bush administration says it will again bend the rules of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is expanding two pilot programs that early signs indicate have helped more children get into tutoring. Currently, only 10% to 20% of the more than one million students eligible for tutoring have signed up. That is considered a dismal rate of participation. Under NCLB schools receiving federal poverty funding that fall short of their yearly progress goals for two straight years must offer transfers to students. After three years of failure, schools must offer low-income parents a choice of tutors. The new policy will allow 23 school districts to reverse the order, offering tutoring first and transfers second. The change is significant because parents have shown a preference for tutoring over transferring their child. The participating school districts are in Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia. ED Secretary Margaret Spellings decided to expand the program after seeing signs that it increased interest in tutoring. Most states did not apply for the flexibility because they do not meet the criteria. The five states approved were the only ones that applied. They must report on the progress of the students and show increases in enrollment in tutoring services.
       The other NCLB modification that ED announced involved bending the NCLB prohibition on school districts themselves providing tutoring when they have failed to meet their yearly progress goals under NCLB. After several school districts complained that rule reduced the number of low-income students receiving help, Secretary Spellings last year agreed to allow Boston and Chicago to provide tutoring even though they had fallen short of academic standards. ED renewed that offer and has now extended it to two more districts, Anchorage, Alaska, and Memphis, Tennessee. Michele McLaughlin, assistant director of educational issues for the American Federation of Teachers, applauds ED increasing flexibility as a matter of fairness, but she is skeptical that they will help reach the goal of turning around struggling schools in high poverty areas because transfers and tutoring have never been established as ways to do that. The decision is part of a pattern of enforcement by Secretary Spellings, who wants to show she can adapt and yet be tough on states that do not comply by threatening to pull their money

[Editor’s Note: ED’s press release announcing the changes, which includes links to an ED fact sheet on the pilot programs and the letters to states and school districts regarding the supplemental educational services (SES) flexibility agreements, is available below. Background on both types of flexibility in other districts, and on low participation in SES, is available at the respective NSBA School Law links. NSBA has called for both types of flexibility to be extended legislatively to all school districts. This is among the features of the No Child Left Behind Improvements Act of 2006, H.R. 5709, introduced by Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska) in June. For links to the legislation and NSBA’s recommendations, see the BoardBuzz item.]