By Rod Paige
5/20/03 -- As I travel the country and have the opportunity to meet with and listen to the concerns of education leaders, there are two issues that often come to the forefront: flexibility and funding.
For the sake of every child in America, we are asking much of every public school. But we are also providing historic levels of flexibility and funding to help you get the job done.
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act provides unprecedented flexibility to direct federal resources to areas where they are needed most. For instance, you can transfer up to 50 percent of the funding you receive for Teacher Quality, Educational Technology, Innovative Programs, and Safe and Drug-Free Schools to any one of these programs or to Title I.
You also have the flexibility to find innovative ways to improve teacher quality, including alternative certification, merit pay, and bonuses for people who teach in high-need subject areas like math and science.
For those looking for even more flexibility, the law provides for the creation of up to 150 local flexibility demonstration projects.
School districts will be allowed to consolidate funds received under four major formula programs in exchange for entering into performance agreements with the state or federal government.
Likewise, NCLB allows up to seven states to participate in state flexibility demonstration projects.
Hayes Mizell, a Distinguished Fellow at the National Staff Development Council, put it this way: "Though the law has received a lot of attention because of its requirements, much of [NCLB] lists what states and school systems can do rather than what they must do to achieve a new national goal: By at least 2014, all students completing the eighth grade will meet or exceed [each] state's proficient level of academic achievement on the state assessments for mathematics and reading or language arts."
We share a common goal, and the law provides for an unprecedented amount of flexibility to help you reach that goal.
If you want even more flexibility, I encourage you to apply for one of the local flexibility demonstration projects or to talk to your state leaders and encourage them to consider the state flexibility demonstration projects.
As for funding, despite all the priorities competing for our tax dollars -- strengthening our economy, defending our nation, and expanding opportunities for all Americans -- the President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2004 boosts education funding to $53.1 billion. That is an $11 billion increase since the President first took office.
Never in the history of our country has a President invested so much in the education of our children.
If the President's budget is approved, Title I funding alone will have increased 41 percent since the enactment of NCLB. Funding for the Reading First program to help young children read will be increased to more than $1.1 billion.
More than $4.5 billion will be provided to support teachers -- the heart of our schools -- through training, recruitment, incentives, loan forgiveness, and tax relief. And $390 million will go to states to help improve accountability systems with annual assessments in grades 3 through 8.
The funding is there. And so is the flexibility. Now it is time to get the job done. We must close the achievement gap and turn all of our schools into places of high expectations and high achievement.
As this article goes to press, 17 states have already had their state accountability plans approved and are well on their way to proving that the challenge of raising student achievement can be met.
All across America -- in schools surrounded by skyscrapers to those surrounded by farms and everywhere in between -- parents, teachers, principals, education leaders, and elected officials are using the tools provided by NCLB to make more progress than ever before toward our common goal of educating every child.
Rod Paige is the U.S. Secretary of Education.