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By Susan Black The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in 2002, is scheduled for congressional reauthorization this year. Exactly when Congress and the president will sign on the dotted line is uncertain, and some officials speculate a vote on NCLB will be postponed until after the 2008 elections. But that uncertainty hasn’t slowed a storm of reports, hearings, and intense lobbying seeking to modify the five-year-old law. In Congress, more than 40 bills proposing changes to NCLB are pending, including one introduced by Rep Don Young (R-Alaska). His bill, H.R. 5709, incorporates recommendations made by the National School Boards Association. It seeks to remedy “unintended consequences” from the way the current law is interpreted and implemented. Young proposes several reforms, including replacing the current system of measuring adequate yearly progress that, he says, overrepresents low-performing students who fall into three subgroups: minority, disabled, or limited English proficient. His bill would count these students as one-third instead of as one in each category. An original NCLB supporter, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), has ideas on how the law should be improved. Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, recently announced a “recipe of reform and resources” for NCLB’s reauthorization. Kennedy plans to organize a “broad partnership” to tackle issues such as funding the law’s mandates and fairly and accurately measuring annual progress. The Bush administration also has weighed in on reauthorization. In January, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings unveiled Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act. It outlines ambitious new goals, including closing racial achievement gaps and ensuring that students are proficient in reading and math by 2014. Union power As you might suspect, teachers unions have their own ideas on the education law’s next incarnation. After all, they exerted their considerable influence over the law when it was written. Union power prevailed in 2002 when Section 1116d was inserted into NCLB, stating that “Nothing in this section shall be construed to alter … the terms of collective bargaining agreements, memoranda of understanding, or other agreements between such employees and their employers.” Frederick Hess, with the American Enterprise Institute, and Martin West, with the Brookings Institution, say a “massive lobbying and letter-writing campaign” led to a victory by the unions. Today it’s understood that “school districts must comply with NCLB requirements in a manner that accommodates the local collective bargaining agreement,” Hess and West report. In A Better Bargain: Overhauling Teacher Collective Bargaining for the 21st Century, Hess and West describe situations where union contracts and NCLB conflict. One example is job protection. NCLB grants school officials in districts deemed “in need of improvement” for five consecutive years the right to reassign and replace teachers. But school officials are prohibited from moving or removing teachers if such actions would violate contract provisions protecting teachers’ job placement and security. Union power has not abated. If anything, the national unions are more organized and more determined to influence NCLB in their favor this time around. The National Education Association is promoting a grassroots strategy that urges all members to speak up in their congressional districts and “get Congress to see the light.” The NEA intends to shine a spotlight on sections of a 230-page report recently issued by the Commission on No Child Left Behind, a bipartisan 15-member group co-chaired by Tommy G. Thompson, a former secretary of health and human services and former Wisconsin governor, and Roy E. Barnes, former Georgia governor. The union has called on its rank-and-file members to tell Congress they “strongly oppose” several of the Commission’s recommendations, including one that adds students’ academic progress to the way teacher quality is measured. The American Federation of Teachers has adopted similar tactics. Tor Cowan, AFT’s legislative director, says the union is using traditional lobbying and grassroots organizing to “drive home the union’s message in all political climates.” In a recent Capitol Watch report, Cowan announced a “vigorous lobbying agenda” that reaches into every layer of the union. Filling out the picture The Public Education Network, based in Washington, D.C., says students, parents, and community residents are affected by NCLB, but they’re often left out of the policy debate. In 2005 and 2006, PEN held a series of public hearings in 10 states where, for 18 months, students, parents, and community residents “told their side of the NCLB story.” Their views, added to those of school board members, administrators, and teacher union representatives, provide a “full picture of the law beyond the schoolhouse doors,” PEN President Wendy Puriefoy says. PEN’s hearings revealed that students, parents, and community members agree on a number of issues pertaining to NCLB: • Test-based accountability is poorly implemented and narrows curriculum, instruction, and student learning. • NCLB and state measurement and reporting systems are confusing and hard to interpret. • Tests given to students with disabilities and to English-language learners are unfair. • Test scores often demoralize teachers and require strong instructional leadership to improve. • Turning low-performing schools around is a better strategy than allowing students to transfer to better schools. • NCLB’s required communication with parents and students is inefficient and ineffective. • Funding is inadequate to ensure that all students, especially those in low-income schools, have equal access to educational programs and resources. Students who testified at PEN’s hearings, whether from low-income schools in Boston or affluent schools in Columbus, Ohio, have similar opinions of the law. Students taking advanced courses say NCLB has reduced rigorous and challenging courses to skill-and-drill exercises. Struggling students, particularly those who are low income and minority, say test scores determine whether they’ll stay in school or drop out. And students at all levels object to spending class time taking practice tests. All about kids On the February morning the Commission on No Child Left Behind released its reauthorization recommendations, I read a commentary on the report by Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews. Some recommendations make sense, Mathews says, including assessing teacher quality according to students’ achievement; allowing principals in low-income schools to refuse to accept low-quality teachers; preparing teachers to work in inner-city schools; and evaluating after-school programs to see if they’re worth keeping. Perhaps, he muses, some of these changes might work their way through Congress and become part of the new law. But there’s “a lot of mush” in the report, Mathews contends, including some recommendations that will fix federal rules but won’t fix the nation’s worst schools. He predicts a long string of arguments and “adult fits of pique and petulance” in the guise of school reform. Fixing schools is supposed to be about kids, Mathews reminds us. His point? Stop fiddling with the law, and instead spend federal funds to find low-income schools that work, figure out how and why they work, and use those lessons to help others improve. Mathews’ recommendations are refreshing. They remind us of what the law intends -- help every child learn and leave no child behind. I can point to plenty of “no excuses schools” that prove kids from the most dire circumstances can learn and succeed. Day in and day out teachers and principals in these schools win the hearts and minds of their students. They should be tapped to teach other schools how to improve. I hope that every group involved in reauthorizing the landmark education law remembers that NCLB should be all about children. |
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