NSBA proposes legislation to fix flaws in NCLB

2/8/05 -- As more than 800 school board leaders from nearly every state converged in Washington, D.C., for NSBA’s Federal Relations Network (FRN) Conference Jan. 30-Feb. 2, they brought a two-pronged message to Capital Hill: Fix the flaws in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and fully fund NCLB and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

NSBA has drafted legislation to amend NCLB, which school board members explained to their senators and representatives in hundreds of meetings during NSBA’s annual Day on the Hill. The bill would improve the way adequate yearly progress (AYP) is determined, make the program less punitive, and increase flexibility.

During the FRN Conference, NSBA President George McShan lauded FRN members for “educating Congress about the importance of public education and the critical role school boards have in improving student achievement.”

Thanks to the “tireless work of school board members,” the 108th Congress enacted legislation of great importance to NSBA, he says, including a bill to save the e-rate and another bill to reauthorize IDEA, which incorporates many of NSBA’s recommendations.

NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant outlined a three-step plan for NSBA and school board member advocacy for the 109th Congress: (1) amend NCLB; (2) help Congress, state legislatures, and local communities better understand the needs of public education and feel pressure to fund those needs; and (3) convince local citizens, business leaders, community leaders, and the press to speak out in support of public education.

“You are on the front line of education every day,” Bryant told FRN members. “You know first hand what an unfunded mandate means. You know first hand how the underfunding of NCLB hurts schools, and you know first hand how the federal government’s failure to pay its fair share of IDEA and Title I hurts all children” and “hurts our communities because local property taxes have to be increased” to make up for the funding shortfalls.

To get this message across to Congress, Bryant encouraged FRN members to invite members of the Senate and House of Representatives to visit local schools.

Bringing members of Congress to our schools is the best way to show them our students’ needs, our students’ progress, and our students’ future,” Bryant says.

“Show them the trailers and the technology-driven classrooms. Show them the overcrowding and the AP class, and for those of you with woefully underfunded schools, show them the leaks, point out the closets that are now offices,” Bryant says. “We can show members the impact of NCLB, and we can show Congress why federal funding is so important.”

NSBA Associate Executive Director Michael A. Resnick told the audience that although the Bush Administration addressed some of NSBA’s concerns with NCLB through regulatory changes during the past few months, those changes “did not adequately address the more basic systemic flaws that are causing schools and specific groups of students to be over identified as failing -- and causing the law itself to lose credibility.”

The bill drafted by NSBA, the NCLB Improvement Act of 2005, addresses more than 40 provisions of the law. It has four broad goals:

• It would give states more flexibility to improve accountability for student performance. For example, rather than relying on cut scores as the premier way for determining AYP, states would be able to measure year-to-year progress, such as through value-added systems.

The bill also would give the education secretary more discretion to grant waivers where they can be justified and to make the flexibility given to some states in their plans available to other states.

• The NSBA bill would improve the alignment between how AYP is measured and the needs of students and their academic performance -- as well as that of their schools.

For example, for those students with disabilities for whom it would be appropriate -- not just students with cognitive disabilities -- the bill would broaden the use of alternate ways for determining AYP based on the achievement levels of students, such as measuring year-to-year progress, allowing out-of-grade testing, and adjusting cut scores for determining proficiency. And it would double the limit on the number of students whose performance on alternate tests can be counted.

For English language learners, the NSBA bill would allow alternate ways to determine AYP for up to three years.

The bill also would “modify the biased way students in multiple groups are currently counted.” Students who fall into three subgroups, for example, would not be over-represented in applying sanctions.

And the bill would “inject some real-world common sense into the test participation rate requirement by recognizing instances where students miss the test window for reasons totally beyond the control of the school system,” Resnick says.

• Improve the alignment between the failure to make AYP and the sanctions.

“In applying sanctions,” Resnick says, “we say focus on the failure of the same group, on the same indicator, in the same subject, to make AYP for two years -- rather than the current revolving-door approach that almost hunts for a reason to impose sanctions.”

The bill also would allow the use of supplemental tutorial services instead of transfers in the first year.

• The bill would align NCLB’s remedies with federal funding. It stipulates that “the more serious and costly sanctions” should not be imposed in any year in which Congress doesn’t provide specific increases in federal funding.