Looking ahead to ESEA reauthorization: What will happen to NCLB?
By Lawrence Hardy
Fall 09 -- To the casual observer, the ambitious education goals of the Obama administration -- its unprecedented educational funds of more than $100 billion, its push to vastly increase college enrollment and completion, its promise, in the words of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, to “educate ourselves to a better economy” -- represent a new direction, a clean break with the past.
This may be true, but people in the public schools are still dealing with the remnants of the last administration in the form of its singular -- and, many say, onerous -- education initiative, No Child Left Behind. Under the strictures of the 2002 law, thousands of schools across the country are being declared “in need of improvement” and thus subject to the law’s escalating and very costly sanctions.
“Right now, it’s punish, punish, punish rather than to help local school districts,” says Reginald Felton, NSBA’s director of federal regulations.
To address this issue, NSBA has drafted two bills: one that would give immediate relief to districts by suspending restructuring sanctions against schools and local education agencies until the law is reauthorized, and the second proposing major changes to NCLB in the reauthorization itself.
The law, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), was first enacted in 1965. Dubbed the No Child Left Behind Act by the Bush administration, it was originally expected to be reauthorized at the end of this school year. However, that goal was not met, and with Congress preoccupied with health care reform and the economy, Felton says he does not expect it to be reauthorized this fall. Hence the need for immediate help for affected school districts.
Fortunately, school districts appear to have a champion in this effort in Duncan himself, who has spoken often of the education department’s desire to work with states and school districts and not simply punish them.
“I know there are schools that are beating the odds where students are getting better every year, and they are labeled failures,” Duncan told U.S. News & World Report earlier this year. “And that can be discouraging and demoralizing.”
Whenever the law is reauthorized, the NCLB moniker will almost surely be retired, Felton and other observers say. NSBA calls its reauthorization proposal the School Accountability Improvements Act of 2009.
The bill has 35 recommendations, dealing with 14 aspects of the law. These heading are measuring Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), goal-setting for AYP, graduation rates, value-added or gain scores measures for AYP, test participation rates, students with disabilities, limited English proficiency students, standards and assessment, first assessments, state flexibility in aligning the federal law with state initiatives, public school choice, supplemental services, sanctions in general, and assessment of Title I children in non-public schools.
“If we’re not going to get (ESEA) reauthorized, we’ve got to provide some relief for local school districts because we all agree that it’s flawed,” Felton says.
Felton said NSBA’s bill still requires schools and districts to make AYP, “but the basis for determining that would be significantly improved.” Among the biggest changes would be basing AYP on a combination of assessment tools rather than single test results. States, subject to Duncan’s approval, would “assign specific weights or points to the assessment in order to calculate a composite score to determine whether AYP is made,” according to a reference guide to the bill.
“Such combinations may include the use of portfolios, projects, performance-based assessments and the use of teacher observations; and the use of high school graduation rates, the number or portion of Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate course, [and] post-secondary education admissions.”
The bill also would enable states to identify schools as meeting AYP even if one or more subgroups of students did not meet AYP targets -- as long as the number of students in a subgroup not making AYP did not exceed 10 percent of that subgroup. In addition, states and school districts would have the flexibility to allow different subgroups to reach 100 percent proficiency (required by 2014 in the original bill) at different rates, depending on these students’ unique needs.
Regarding graduation rates, the bill recognizes school districts’ efforts on behalf of students who may take more than four years to complete a high school diploma. It says that “rather than punishing schools by not having on-time grads, there are circumstances under which they should have incentives for investing in extensive efforts to graduate students in a fifth year or beyond ...” the reference guide says. It points to a recent study by NSBA’s Center for Public Education that found “late graduates” have better jobs, live healthier lifestyles, and participate more fully in their communities than students who do not graduate from high school.
The bill would also ease the test participation rate for calculating AYP, moving from a required 95 percent to a range of 90 to 95 percent (based on state criteria). NSBA notes that some small schools currently can miss making AYP if just one or two students do not take the test.
Regarding consequences for not making AYP, the bill says schools should be able to offer both school choice and supplemental services in the first year of school improvement. Until recently modified by the new administration, school choice must be offered the first year and tutoring in the second. And, given limited Title I funds, NSBA says, tutoring should only be required to be given to students in a subgroup who do not make AYP, not to all eligible Title I students.
Under the current law, schools in which students in a certain subgroup do not make AYP may receive “safe harbor” provisions that exempt them from sanctions if, among other things, they reduce the number of students not meeting the standards by 10 percent. NSBA’s bill would reduce that threshold to 5 percent.
“The flexibility would permit subgroups to demonstrate progress, and such recognition would provide more understandable and more manageable goals for the students in this subgroup,” the reference guide says.
Reproduced with permission from School Board News. Copyright © 2009, 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.