Can two federal bills finally fulfill goals of No Child Left Behind?
The No Child Left Behind law had an ambitious goal to reform America's public schools 16 years ago: Every student, everywhere, would be academically successful by 2014.
That hasn't happened, and the vast majority of schools that receive federal funds are now labeled as failures under the law.
"The current federal system has basically become meaningless in drawing a distinction between schools that are performing well and schools that are not," said Keric Ashley, deputy superintendent for the California Department of Education.
That could change. Both houses of Congress have approved sweeping education bills, but the effort could fall short of becoming law because of political and policy hurdles.
The Senate's Every Child Achieves Act, approved last week, as well as legislation passed by the House of Representatives, would return to the states broad authority over how to deal with low-performing schools.
At the same time, the bills maintain requirements for annual standardized testing in math and English in most grades, while also ordering states to report detailed data about student achievement.
But there are important distinctions between the House and Senate measures that ultimately could doom the effort.
The fundamental differences concern the amount of federal funding and the rules for using these dollars. The House bill, called the Student Success Act, caps education spending and allows states more freedom to reduce their own spending on schools without facing federal penalties. It also gives more freedom to states regarding which students will benefit from federal aid.
Just as crucially, the House bill would make it easier for federal money to follow low-income students who qualify for aid, regardless of what public school they attend. This approach has many supporters, but would fundamentally alter the purpose and distribution of federal funds, experts said.
That's because current federal policy concentrates this aid, called Title 1, in schools with the highest percentages of low-income students. In L.A., for example, a school in which 20% of students come from low-income families would not receive Title 1 funding under today's rules, leaving more funding available for a campus that is 80% low income. The House bill would eliminate that.
Critics say the House bill would, in effect, transfer money from Can two federal bills finally fulfill goals of No Child Left Behind? - LA Times:
