Author: Patsy Crawford | Posted: 13. January 2012 01:57

January 8, 2012 marks the 10^th anniversary of former President George W. Bush’s signing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and many political observers are skeptical that its reauthorization, more than four years overdue, will occur before the end of this final year of the 112^th Congress.  Although most policy makers agree that the well-intentioned NCLB is seriously flawed and needs to be “fixed” immediately, wide policy divides between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate have made a consolidated bi-partisan legislative solution seemingly impossible. After the President Obama Administration’s March 2010 Blue Print for Reform outlined its NCLB rewrite priorities, Congress has made very little progress toward rewriting NCLB with bipartisan broad reform.  Senate Democrat leader drafted several proposals, but only one had bi-partisan support; House Republican leaders offered several conjunctive proposals, but only one was reported to have bi-partisan support.

On January 6, 2012 the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Workforce Committee released two new conjunctive draft proposals to rewrite NCLB; the Student Success Act and the Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act.  The two new proposals are offered in conjunction with the House Committee’s previous proposals.  A January 9^th article in Education Week online reported that, like the Senate and Administration proposals, the House Committee proposals would eliminate the use of adequate yearly progress (AYP) as the accountability system for schools, but keep current testing schedules in place.  However, unlike the Senate and the Administration, the House Committee proposes to significantly decrease the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) role in school turnaround initiatives and provide greater flexibility to school districts in the use of federal funds.  The House Committee NCLB rewrite proposes to eliminate tutoring and school choice options for parents, science as a required subject, and the highly-qualified teacher requirements.  The requirement that states and school districts maintain state and local education funding at certain levels each year, called Maintenance of Effort or MOE, would also be eliminated.  As currently drafted, the two House Committee proposals have no Democrat support.

On January 10^th Education Week reported online that ED Secretary Arne Duncan “isn’t happy” with the substance nor the partisan process of the House Committee proposals and that, in the absence of serious bi-partisan reform legislation, he will continue offering states waivers of NCLB requirements, including AYP, in exchange for commitments to the Administration’s key reform priorities, including higher academic standards for students, improving teacher evaluation systems, and turning around the lowest-performing schools.  In November 2011 eleven states applied for NCLB waivers and about 25 other states have expressed the intent to apply.  Establishing less burdensome school and state accountability systems is a major objective.  In addition to total relief from AYP, some states seek flexibility in the student subgroups that must be tracked for accountability.  According a December 2011 paper by the Center on Education Policy, nine of the applicants propose, among other things, an accountability system that includes only two student groups:  (1) all students, and (2) all disadvantaged students (a subgroup of all students).  Often, the accountability system would focus on closing the achievement gap between the disadvantaged students subgroup and the students who are not in the subgroup.  This approach would replace the current NCLB approach that holds schools accountable for the performance of numerous student subgroups, such as students by ethnicity/race, students from low-income families, students with disabilities, and English language learners.  According to a January 6^th article by LRP Publications, while some school administrators favor streamlining the states’ accountability systems, some student advocates are concerned that subgroups that don’t perform well could be overlooked under the alternative systems.  The NCLB waiver applications are subject to peer review prior to approval.