NCLB’s “onerous” provisions

posted at 8:25 am on June 1, 2012 by Libby Sternberg

More states were granted waivers from No Child Left Behind provisions this past week, bringing the total to 19, with 18 more states “under review” for waivers.

NCLB, which is the feel-good title for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, was passed with bipartisan support and Republican leadership. Who can forget this famous signing photo—yes, that’s the late Sen. Ted Kennedy smiling about the law’s passage:

Over the years, NCLB has been under attack from both right and left. Liberals don’t like it because of  its testing requirements and “sanctions” – which they think are unfair and oppressive –against under-performing schools. They are joined by some conservatives in the view that the federal government shouldn’t be overly involved with what has traditionally been a local issue in America: elementary and secondary education. Critics of testing in general join opponents in decrying the law.

But here are two simple facts that get lost in the muddle of criticism:

1. States that don’t like NCLB have an opt-out available even before asking for a waiver: they can refuse to take Title I funds. The federal government only gets involved in education with NCLB if states take federal money. If they take the dough, they have to show they’re actually educating kids. Hardly a radical concept.
2. Most, if not all, states were involved in statewide standards and testing before NCLB. NCLB merely requires states to use those tests to actually make improvements…or else.

And what is the awful, onerous “or else”?  Here’s what the law says:

(5) FAILURE TO MAKE ADEQUATE YEARLY PROGRESS AFTER IDENTIFICATION- In the case of any school served under this part that fails to make adequate yearly progress, as set out in the State’s plan under section 1111(b)(2), by the end of the first full school year after identification under paragraph (1), the local educational agency serving such school —

(A) shall continue to provide all students enrolled in the school with the option to transfer to another public school served by the local educational agency in accordance with subparagraphs (E) and (F);

(B) shall make supplemental educational services available consistent with subsection (e)(1); and

(C) shall continue to provide technical assistance.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), by the way, just means that schools must educate the vast majority of their students in basic skills. In other words, they have to do their jobs. No excuses.

I searched online for less “bureaucratese” language to explain the NCLB sanctions. Below is a great roundup from the Minnesota School Boards Association. Note how long the timeline for improvement is. It would take several years of not meeting AYP standards before a child would get to access school choice or tutorial services that would help make up for his/her school’s inadequacies.

Several years—think about that. A child could go from Grade 1 to Grade 3 before being able to choose another school (if that’s possible – more on that in a bit), or from Grade 1 to Grade 4 before being able to access tutorial services. And it’s not until Year Five of not meeting AYP that the school has to actually restructure in order to fix problems. Yes, I’d say that’s “onerous,” but for the children in a failing school, not the school itself:

From: Minnesota School Boards Association:

Consecutive Years of Missing AYP Sanctions

First Year

• Placed on “watch” list
• Required to develop a school improvement plan

Second Year

• Listed as “needs improvement” school.
• District must provide any student attending the “needs improvement” school the option of attending another school that has met adequate yearly progress. The district pays transportation costs.

Third Year

• Listed as “needs improvement” school.
• District must provide any student attending the “needs improvement” school the option of attending another school that has met adequate yearly progress. The district pays transportation costs.
• The school district must offer “supplemental educational services” to any student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch. One option for supplemental services must be from an outside provider.

Fourth Year

• Listed as “needs improvement” school.
• District must provide any student attending the “needs improvement” school the option of attending another school that has met adequate yearly progress. The district pays transportation costs.
• The school district must offer “supplemental educational services” to any student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch. One option for supplemental services must be from an outside provider.
• The school must change its staffing or make a “fundamental change” such as restructuring the school.

Fifth Year

• Listed as “needs improvement” school.
• District must provide any student attending the “needs improvement” school the option of attending another school that has met adequate yearly progress. The district pays transportation costs.
• The school district must offer “supplemental educational services” to any student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch. One option for supplemental services must be from an outside provider.
• The school must convert into a charter school, turn management over to a private management company or be taken over by the state.

When I was a school choice advocate in Vermont, schools, school boards, and the local NEA were not happy with NCLB. The state, as many others, had already come up with state educational standards and ways to test them. What seemed to bother education workers (all those involved in public education, that is) was not the testing so much as the accountability—the consequences, in other words.

So bothered were education policy makers by NCLB’s school choice provisions, in fact, that Vermont actually passed a law that allowed the state to wriggle out of them. Here’s how it happened:

In Vermont, most school districts are small and have only one elementary and one high school, while “supervisory unions” had several school districts (and thus, multiple schools) contained within them. Title I money flows into a state through what are called LEAs (local education agencies). In Vermont, LEAs were defined as the larger supervisory unions (multi-district areas). With this definition of an LEA, children in under-performing schools should have been able to access other public schools within the LEA (the larger multi-district/multi-school “supervisory unions”). But so horrified were education leaders that kids would actually be able to choose another school that they passed a law saying that in Vermont an LEA was defined as a supervisory union for distribution of Title I funds but as a local (small, one-school) district for the purposes of NCLB sanctions. The result: zippo school choice.

The law, by the way, was signed by a Republican governor who allegedly supported school choice.

This experience pointed out in stark relief to me what schools and states hate about NCLB: the accountability. States are fine with administering tests. Get rid of NCLB tomorrow and you’ll still have statewide tests. But instead of using the tests to actually improve schools and children’s educational opportunities, most education policy makers want to use them to make the case for more money, a view shared by the teachers unions.

Here’s the NEA’s “position in brief” on NCLB (ESEA):

• ESEA should promote innovation, high expectations, and encourage development of  21^st century skills in public schools.
• ESEA should end the obsession with high-stakes, poor-quality tests by developing high-quality assessment systems that provide multiple ways for students to show what they have learned.
• ESEA should help provide great educators and school leaders for every student.
• ESEA should promote public education as a shared responsibility of parents, communities, educators, and policymakers.
• ESEA should provide increased funding to all states and school districts to  meet the growing demand for globally-competitive education of U.S. students.

Translation: get rid of tests that might actually tell you something, and just send more money. If you like that idea, here’s where you can sign up.

As I’ve written before, testing is useful as a “physical, not an autopsy”—for self-examination, improvement and meaningful correction.

But if you don’t want states to test children to see how they and their schools are doing, fine. Sweep the tests all off the table. Let parents choose schools – public or private – with no financial penalty. End the “what defines educational quality” debate. Let parents define educational quality for their children.

It’s the ultimate parental involvement.

___

Libby Sternberg is a novelist who headed a school choice organization in Vermont. She’s written about Vermont’s “tuition towns” for the Cato Institute. One of her novels uses the 1922 passage of the anti-private school Oregon School Law as a backdrop.

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