It's Baaaack
By Fawn Johnson

No Child Left Behind is back, but who knows how long the effort to reauthorize the long overdue legislation will last. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is voting on a bill this week to overhaul the nation's elementary and secondary school system. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., unveiled his own reauthorization proposal last week.

Republicans and Democrats are far apart on many issues when it comes to No Child Left Behind, which means the first votes on the legislation will likely be partisan.

Republicans on the Senate HELP committee won't support the legislation put together by the committee's chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Harkin's bill would eliminate the adequate yearly progress (AYP) benchmarks in No Child Left Behind, but it would preserve the school scoring systems that states have put in place under the administration's waiver program. States that don't have such systems in place will be required to create them based on federal guidelines.

Led by ranking member Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Senate Republicans have drafted their own alternative that would free the states from many of the onerous benchmarks in No Child Left Behind. Alexander proudly notes that his bill is about one-fifth the size of Harkin's bill.

Republican and Democratic ESEA bills in the Senate. (Fawn Johnson)


Alexander says Harkin's bill puts too much power in the federal government because the administration would still be able to direct states' efforts on accountability and turning around low performing schools. Both Alexander and Kline's bills would put much of the onus on states to set their own accountability measures and report them to the public.

Despite the disagreements, the legislative activity sets up the possibility that lawmakers could start a serious bargaining process later in the year, especially if it becomes clear to them that the status quo isn't working. If Congress feels pressure from states and school boards that they are being weighed down by the administration's work-around approach to the current law's difficult benchmarks, it might kick the congressional talks into higher gear.

The good news is that both Senate bills and the House bill retain the one piece of No Child Left Behind that is almost everyone agrees is its best--disaggregation of student data such that students with problems are easily identified.

A summary of Harkin's bill can be found here.

A summary of Alexander's bill can be found here.

A summary of Kline's bill can be found here.

What are the advantages of restarting the debate on No Child Left Behind now? How does the Education Department's waiver program impact the debate? Is it such a big deal to eliminate the current law's adequate yearly progress benchmarks, since the administration has already given states waivers to back out of them? What will happen if Congress doesn't follow through with a reauthorization this year? What are the most important data points that should be collected and analyzed by states in the public school system?
 

Why are Senators Not Listening?
By Kevin Welner

Perhaps our senators haven’t yet noticed, but their constituents don’t much care for No Child Left Behind.

Perhaps they haven’t noticed all the protests against excessive testing and school closings. Or that all of the Democratic candidates to replace NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg seem to be running away from his education policies. Or the defeat of Tony Bennett in Indiana, or the two recent school board elections in Los Angeles, or last week’s Texas legislation that cuts back on testing.

Perhaps they aren’t listening to the parents, teachers, students, and lots of other folks – certainly including insignificant researchers like me – who think US education policy has fallen out of balance. In just one day, a new Education Declaration garnered more than 10,000 signatures.

It’s not just the excessive testing, but that’s part of it. It’s not just the compulsive use of high-stakes incentives and punishments, but that’s part of it as well. It’s not just the narrowed idea of public schooling as three-Rs-based training for future employment, nor is it not just the evidence-free fetishizing of pursuits like privatization, choice and competition, and technology. But those, too, are part of why people are seeking a change.

In truth, the most troubling element of the status quo in education is the lack of balance itself. All of these approaches – testing, high-stakes accountability, preparation for employment, private corporate services, choice and competition, and technology – all of these can play positive roles in the US school system. But with the exception of preparation for employment, these are all tools, not goals. We’ve let the tools become our masters; we’ve been pursuing them as ends in themselves.

When politicians utter talismanic words like “accountability” and “choice,” we are expected to respond with unquestioning devotion. And this has led us to a reauthorization discussion that incongruously accepts the basic policy premises of the discredited status quo.

Balanced policy looks to inputs (and processes) as much as outputs. Balanced policy understands that accountability includes an obligation by those making demands to provide necessary resources to those on the ground. Balanced policy incorporates evaluative feedback loops to identify and respond to needs. It understands that new technology and innovation can be beneficial, but that careless adoption can be harmful. Similarly, it understands that school choice approaches are mere tools that must be used thoughtfully and carefully to accomplish recognized goals.

And balanced policy begins with a core understanding that we send our children to school as part of our own larger goals for them to be well-adjusted, well-rounded people and citizens as well as successful workers.

Perhaps most importantly, achievement goals need to be balanced with opportunity goals. We cannot close the achievement gap without closing the opportunity gap. This is why Stanford’s Prudence Carter and I brought together top scholars to write accessible research-based essays explaining how the opportunity gap arises and how it can be closed.

Neither Sen. Harkin nor Sen. Alexander has started with these sound basic premises. So while each of them offers some good ideas, their overall legislative designs are fatally flawed. Let’s hope that during the summer recess they and their colleagues have a chance to speak with parents, students and teachers – people who will ask the fundamental question: Why continue failed policies?