Virginia considering abandoning NCLB
The General Assembly is flirting with abandoning a landmark federal law that governs schools in the United States. The decision could make Virginia the first state to set a deadline—summer 2009—for planning a pullout from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which ties billions of dollars to federally mandated testing standards in public schools. State politicians have balked at some of those standards in the past few years. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has signed bills asking the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to waive parts of the federal law. Most of those exemptions were granted, but the notable ones that have not been approved frustrate educators and annoy legislators. Both the Senate and the House of Delegates are working with bills that say that if the state’s waiver requests aren’t granted, Virginia’s Board of Education would develop a plan to withdraw from NCLB by July 2009. Delegates have approved the bills, even adding language to one seeking to recoup federal tax money if the state withdraws. Senators keep deleting the deadline, leaving the bills, SB490 and HB1425, more open-ended. Legislators from both chambers will have to negotiate a compromise for a bill with a deadline to make it to the governor’s desk. Kaine hasn’t said what he would do with the measure, which could cost Virginia more than $350 million a year in federal aid.
According to David Shreve, federal affairs counsel for education for the National Conference of State Legislatures, the brinkmanship in Virginia is typical of the friction NCLB has caused nationally. Shreve believes Virginia would be the first state to set a formal deadline to pull out of the law. States from Utah to New York have asked for “flexibility” from the law to avoid failing certain standards. Exemptions, sometimes technical in nature and hidden from public discussion, often are granted, Shreve said. But the need for waivers highlights fundamental flaws in the law, Shreve added. “To save the beast, they’ve allowed everybody to take chunks out of it,” he said. “Sort of like putting a turbocharger on a Yugo. You’ve solved a problem of getting faster, but you haven’t solved the problem of the Yugo being a car that sometimes spontaneously disassembles.”
Some of Virginia’s issues with NCLB are tied to testing of subgroups, educational jargon for small populations of students. NCLB holds the small groups to the same benchmarks as the total population so deficiencies in smaller samples aren’t masked by a school’s overall success. Charles Pyle, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Education, said the attention NCLB gave to subgroups was important to ensure all students receive the best education. Still, Virginia was rebuffed last year in its attempt to exempt for two years the test scores of some limited-English proficiency students. The results for a student in the country for less than a year can be exempted, Pyle said. The state fared slightly better in asking for the right to reverse the sanctions imposed in the first two years a school fails to meet the testing standard. Virginia asked to reverse the order, saying it made more sense to tutor students and test them again before giving parents the option to change schools. ED let the state do it in seven districts, including in Hampton and Newport News.
Del. Steve Landes, the bill’s sponsor in the House, said the mere discussion of pulling out gives state education leaders leverage in negotiations with their federal peers. The delayed date to plan a withdrawal also gives officials a chance to gauge the law’s future. Congress could reauthorize a more state-friendly NCLB measure. Federal education officials could grant Virginia’s waivers and make the argument moot. Or next year’s General Assembly could repeal any action taken by this year’s. “This one is definitely different,” said Gordon Hickey, the governor’s spokesman. “We’ll see what happens.”
Source: Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 2/25/08, By Richard Quinn
[Editor’s Note: Virginia has been among the most vocal critics of NCLB’s provisions concerning English language learners. See below.]
NSBA School Law pages on Virginia ELL showdown
NSBA School Law pages on U.S. Senate legislation