Examining That Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part III
This is my third post on contents of the Alexander-Murray, Senate reauthorization draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) scheduled to be presented to the Senate education committee on April 14, 2015.
Alexander and Murray call their 601-page draft, Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.
This ESEA reauthorization draft is not light reading; however, I am trying to produce a digest that is as easy to “digest” as is possible.
Let us abruptly dive in from this legislative precipice from the point at which I ended my second installment: ESEA funding for eligible private school students.
Page 162: Private schools can receive funding for eligible students (see my second, April 9, 2015, post for categories of eligible students). The Alexander-Murray draft stipulates that the ESEA funding allotted for children attending private school must proportionally equal the funding for qualified children attending public schools. This is not a statement endorsing fiscal portability of funding; it is only an assurance that the amount of funding per child is constant regardless if the ESEA-funding-eligible child attends public or private school.
The statement about federal funds “supplementing not supplanting” other funding is repeated in connection with ESEA funding paid to private schools for eligible students (see page 164). In other words, federal funding cannot replace other funding, such as tuition. For example, neither states nor local education agencies (LEAs) can use ESEA funding as a tuition substitute/ back door funding for a voucher program for public students to attend private schools.
As to compliance: ESEA funds for eligible children attending private school cannot include mandating “a particular instructional method” or “a particular instructional setting” (pg. 165). Furthermore, the US Secretary of Education cannot micromanage the criteria set by an LEA for determining funding eligibility to any school:
(4) PROHIBITION.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize or permit the Secretary to establish any criterion that specifies, defines, or prescribes the specific methodology a local educational agency uses to allocate State and local funds to each school receiving assistance under this part.
Regarding states’ not using federal funds to replace state educational budgets, the Alexander-Murray reauthorization includes the stipulation that for states to receive its “full allotment of funds …for any fiscal year,” that state must budget in a given fiscal year not less than 90 percent of funding as compared to the previous fiscal year’s education budget. This stipulation also helps guarantee against general slashing of a state education budget: If the state budget drops more than 10 percent from one fiscal year to the next, that state will not receive its full allotment of ESEA funding for the upcoming year.
The penalty is proportional (pg. 167):
(2) REDUCTION IN CASE OF FAILURE TO MEET.—(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall reduce the amount of the allotment of funds under this section in any fiscal year in the exact proportion by which a State fails to meet the requirement of paragraph (1) by falling below 90 percent of both the fiscal effort per student and aggregate expenditures (using the measure most favorable to the State), if such State has also failed to meet such requirement (as determined using the measure most favorable to the State) for 1 or more of the 5 immediately preceding fiscal years.
However, this is one situation over which the US secretary could issue a waiver:
(3) WAIVER.—The Secretary may waive the requirements of this subsection if the Secretary determines that a waiver would be equitable due to—(A) exceptional or uncontrollable circumstances, such as a natural disaster or a change in the organizational structure of the State; or(B) a precipitous decline in the financial resources of the State. (pgs. 167-8)
Page 168: Moving on to ESEA funding of assessments/standards: ESEA money can be used to fund assessments developed in “voluntary partnerships with other States, at the sole discretion of each such State.” ESEA funds can also be used for “developing or improving balanced assessment systems that include summative, interim, and formative assessments, including supporting local educational agencies in developing or improving such assessments” (pg. 170); however, there is no federal mandate that ESEA money be used to develop such assessment systems.
Federal funding per state for state assessments will be at least $3,000,000 (pg. 170).
Section 1203 is entitled, “Innovative Assessment and Accountability Demonstration Authority,” is an invitation for up to 5 states to apply to develop new, “innovative” assessment systems over an “initial period” of 3 years (with a possible 2-year renewal) as approved by the US secretary of education. The “innovative” systems must lead to “improved academic outcomes, including increased high school graduation rates for high schools” (pg. 173), and LEAs serving to pilot the “innovative” system may use it as a substitute for the annual assessments being used by the rest of the state (pg. 182). If the “innovative” system is deemed to be a success, then an entire state could use it to replace previously-approved annual assessments (pg. 184).
Concerning general provisions of Title I (section 1012, pg. 208): Several parts that were part of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have been removed: NCLB Part E (“National Assessment of Title I”), NCLB Part F (“Comprehensive School Reform”), NCLB Part G (“Advanced Placement Programs”), and NCLB Part H (“School Dropout Prevention”). Also, removed were NCLB section 1904 (“Local education agency spending audits”), NCLB section 1907 (“State report on dropout data”), and NCLB section 1908 (“Regulation for sections 1111 through 1116, among the “basic program requirements” for “improving basic programs operated by LEAs”).
The cutting of these sections appears to be an attempt to reduce the federal control over how states spend Title I money.
NCLB included a section on “emergency situations” (section 1901(b)(5)) regarding the US secretary’s authority to act quickly in situations “in which regulations to carry out this title must be issued within a very limited time to assist State educational agencies and local educational agencies with the operation of a program under this title.” The NCLB language includes requiring the secretary to conduct regional meetings to review such proposed regulations”; however, the section offers no additional details.
The Alexander-Murray reauthorization adds to this “emergency” process the requirement that the secretary present the emergency issue in detail before Congress (including evidence that the secretary sought, received, and addressed LEA input and concerns, as well as a detailing of the “time, cost, and paperwork burden that the regulation will impose on State educational agencies, local educational agencies, schools, and other entities that may be impacted by the regulation”– pg. 213) and Examining That Proposed Senate ESEA Reauthorization, Part III | deutsch29:
