School board members concerned about cost of implementing NCLB
2/18/03 -- As his district begins to implement the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, board member Richard Hegmann of the Akron (N.Y.) Central School District wonders "who's going to pay for it."
That's the key question raised by school board members attending NSBA's Federal Relations Network Conference, when they were asked about their biggest concerns in implementing NCLB.
Several board members also expressed concerns about how their districts are going to meet the law's requirements to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in raising student achievement.
NCLB requires every student to reach a proficient level in reading, math, and science on state assessments by the 2013-14 school year. They must show incremental progress each year toward this goal among all students and among various subgroups of students.
Hegmann predicts it's going to be "very difficult to show improvement every year" when students already are performing at high levels.
Paul Enniss, president of the Alhambra school board in Phoenix, Ariz., is worried about how his district will pay for the increased services his schools will need to provide to raise student performance.
Five of the district's 14 schools are underperforming and will be subject to the NCLB choice provisions next year if they don't improve. As a result, his district has begun to focus more on reading and math and has adopted the Accelerated Reader program.
Enniss is grateful that some teachers are providing after-school tutoring on a volunteer basis. They will get incentive pay if their students improve.
The San Juan Unified School District in Gold River, Calif., needs more Title I funding to comply with NCLB, says board Vice President Thomaysa Glover. The district might have to offer choice next year at three of its 83 schools.
K. Wess Larson, board vice president at the Rio Linda Union Elementary School District in Sacramento, Calif., worries about making AYP. "The standards are so high, every school will fail," he says.
AYP also is a major issue for James Petrie of the Wayne County (Mich.) Regional Educational Service Agency, as well as how limited-English-proficient students will be tested and how the district can ensure all teachers meet the law's higher standards for accreditation.
Noel Hammett, a member of the East Baton Rouge Parish school board in Louisiana, wonders how his district will be able to bring every student up to the proficient level when it has high rates of poverty and student mobility.
Hammett says children in his district started kindergarten at the 17th percentile on state assessments, on average, and rose to the 39th percentile by grade 6. "Even with that progress, we won't make AYP," he says, because high mobility rates -- 70 percent at one school -- thwart efforts to raise student achievement. "How do you hold the faculty accountable when the students weren't there?"
Efforts to comply with NCLB are further complicated in East Baton Rouge by the district's court-ordered desegregation plan, Hammett says.
Three of the district's 101 schools are considered in need of improvement, but the district couldn't offer choice to parents at the beginning of the current school year because of the desegregation plan, Hammett says. "We have to get court approval to move a single child. It's a tremendous burden." Next year as many as 15 to 20 schools could be subject to the school choice provisions.
Districts with such plans are not exempt from the NCLB mandates, he says, and his district will have to spend "several hundred thousand dollars to renegotiate with all the plaintiffs" in the desegregation suit.
Roger Myers of the Stanwood school district in Camano Island, Wash., is concerned about how his district will find highly qualified paraprofessionals, because the district can't afford to pay them more than $10 an hour, and they can't afford the additional training mandated by NCLB.
He also raised the issue of whether the AYP provisions are realistic, speculating that "AYP is set up so you will fail, opening the door for vouchers."
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| Reproduced with permission from the Feb. 18, 2003, issue of School Board News. Copyright © 2003, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |