Put Away the Champagne
There's still work to be done on the Senate's No Child Left Behind rewrite.
Last week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee unanimously approved the Every Child Achieves Act, a bill to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, or NCLB. After the vote, the committee members and audience erupted in applause. But before popping the champagne, policymakers and advocates should ask themselves: Are they letting their desire for change overshadow their desire for progress?
No doubt, many observers are cheering. Mike Petrilli of the right-leaning Fordham Foundation hailedthe legislation as an “amazing tribute to … bipartisan leadership.” Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, praised Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chairman and ranking member of the committee, for their “extraordinary leadership.” Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, applauded Alexander and Murray "for listening to educators and leading the improvements made to the bill in committee.” The National School Boards Association declared the bill “a great victory.”
Parents, teachers and school leaders are eager for a new federal framework for education policy. But while there is a lot in the new Elementary and Secondary Education Act bill to like, in many ways it represents a missed opportunity.
Importantly, the new bill took some positive steps to address the growing concern about high-stakes standardized tests. By providing funding to states to audit their assessment systems, the bill prods states to eliminate unnecessary and duplicative tests and the time-consuming prep that too often accompanies them. Moreover, the new bill embraces more holistic school accountability systems that will reduce stress on teachers. And it continues to test students annually so parents can know if their children are on track to graduate ready for college or a career and school leaders can direct additional resources, support and interventions where needed.
Fortunately, the bill does not include portability, which would have shifted limited funds away from schools serving the poorest students and towards more affluent student populations. It also limits the number of students with special needs who can be held to different academic standards in order to ensure that they will not receive an inferior education. And thanks to an important amendment offered by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and approved by the committee, the bill provides vital federal resources to support evidence-based innovative approaches to improving education.
But in some fundamental ways, the bill – like many schools identified under No Child Left Behind – needs improvement. First, it does nothing to fix our broken school finance system, which underinveststo the tune of $8.5 billion in students with greater needs – such as those living in or near poverty, minorities, and English language learners – relative to those from wealthier communities. As Bennetsaid during the committee debate, “It is a myth that we are providing additional resources to kids in schools with high concentrations of kids in poverty … the federal government is actually subsidizing districts and states efforts to spend more money in low-poverty schools.” Furthermore, it leaves in the place the inequitable and byzantine formulas for distributing federal funds among states, which results in Wyoming receiving nearly three times as much as Utah in taxpayer funds per poor student.
The bill also fails to make a meaningful new investment in high-quality early childhood education, even though such programs are proven to help close the achievement gap before it opens and are shown to generate dramatically outsized long-term return on investments in employment rates, earnings and health outcome. While the committee approved an amendment to allow for greater coordination among early childhood programs, it does not invest new funding into early childhood programs, nor does it include the high-quality standards that have demonstrated outcomes for children.
And perhaps of greatest concern, the bill does little to turn around chronically failing schools or require meaningful interventions in schools that aren’t ensuring that disadvantaged students live up to their potential. At the Center for American Progress, we’ve tracked real progress on this front over the last five years and are developing an evidence-based strategy for what works. Without targeted resources and a concerted message to states and districts that they cannot let the students trapped in underperforming schools continue to languish, it’s unlikely that we will see sustained momentum on this front.
Next the bill moves to the Senate floor, where every senator will have the opportunity to weigh in. Alexander made a powerful statement during the mark-up about wanting to continue to work on these issues as the bill moves toward the floor. Let’s hope he keeps that promise and that the Senate delivers a bill that offers both progress and change. Don't Pop Champagne Over Senate's No Child Left Behind Rewrite Yet - US News:
