Transcript Slide 1

The No Child Left Behind Act: Past,
Present, and Future Under Obama
Issues +Answers Gulf Coast Public Lecture Series
Jointly Sponsored by
The Sun Herald
and
The University of Southern Mississippi, Gulf Coast,
College of Education and Psychology
Charles J. Russo, J.D., Ed.D.
Panzer Chair in Education
University of Dayton
(937) 229-3722 (ph)
[email protected]
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Overview of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
3. Key Elements of NCLB
a) Accountability
b) Highly Qualified Teachers (HQTs)
c) Funding and Support for HQTs
4. Legal Issues and the NCLB
a) Student-Programmatic Issues
b) School Staff and Systems
5. Evaluation
6. The Future of NCLB: Issues and New Directions
1. Introduction
Due to poor student performance, President Bush released his
education reform plan 3 days after being inaugurated in January
2001 to make the NCLB the cornerstone of his administration’s
educational policy
NCLB enacted December 2001 with strong bi-partisan support:
91-8 in Senate and 384-45 in the House
NCLB signed into law January 8, 2002
Goal: have all students achieve at grade level by 2014
1. Introduction
The NCLB was enacted as part of the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the most
expansive federal education statute in history.
Initially enacted in 1965 during the height of the civil rights
movement, the original ESEA, and later versions, created a
pool of federal funds to be used to provide, or withhold,
support for States based on whether they complied with its
provisions and those of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
1. Introduction
Before 1965, policy-making for elementary and secondary
education was exclusively with State and local governments
(except for school desegregation)
The Cold War, Sputnik (1957), civil rights movement, and
President Johnson’s War on Poverty led to enactment of the
ESEA
2. Overview
As part of expected full compliance by 2014, NCLB
requires States to
1. create challenging academic content standards of
proficiency
2. assess student proficiency in grades 3-8 each year in
reading and mathematics, and once in those subjects in
grades 9-12
3. devise own definitions of proficiency
4. meet Annual Yearly Progress
5. have teachers of core academic subjects be “highly
qualified”
2. Overview
Despite the Act’s good intentions, the public seems
unconvinced that the NCLB is likely to have much of a
positive impact on schools.
In fact, concerns have emerged over whether the NCLB
represents Federal over-reaching through its reliance on the
Spending Clause, thereby inserting itself into a realm that is
reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment or
is a necessary educational reform.
2. Overview
Thus, the remainder of this presentation is divided into 5 parts:
2. Overview of the NCLB
3. Key Elements of NCLB
a) Accountability
b) HQTs
c) Funding and Support for HQTs
4. Legal Issues and the NCLB
a) Student-Programmatic Issues
b) School Staff and Systems
5. Evaluation
6. The Future of NCLB: Issues and New Directions?
2. Overview
Reauthorized in 2002 as the almost 400 page long
Strengthening and Improvement of Elementary and
Secondary Schools, the ESEA-NCLB is now divided into
nine subchapters, down from 14 in its previous version.
The NCLB retains many of its original terms.
2. Overview: Subchapter I
Title (or Chapter) I, now Subchapter I, Improving the
Academic Achievement of the Disadvantaged, perhaps
the best known part of the ESEA.
Subchapter I requires local boards that receive federal
financial assistance to take steps to improve academic
achievement among students who are economically
disadvantaged.
Overview: Subchapter II
Subchapter II, Preparing, Training, and Recruiting High
Quality Teachers and Principals, sections that go to the
heart of the NCLB, contain some of the Act’s most
controversial and far-reaching provisions.
Major parts of this subchapter address
1) teacher and principal training and recruiting;
2) mathematics and science partnerships;
3) innovations for teacher quality; and
4) programs to enhance education through technology.
2. Overview: Subchapter I
Subchapter I is divided into subparts which are designed to
provide basic program requirements such as remedial
programs for children from poor families.
Other key subparts cover
1) grants for reading skills improvements;
2) education for migratory children;
3) prevention and intervention programs for children and
youth who are neglected, delinquent, or at-risk;
4) comprehensive school reform;
5) advanced placement programs; and
6) school dropout prevention.
Overview: Subchapters III-IV
Subchapter III, Language Instruction for Limited
English Proficient and Immigrant Students, directs
school officials to provide improved language
instruction for children in need of such programs.
Two key parts of Subchapter IV, 21st Century Schools:
1) safe and drug-free schools and communities
2) Twenty-First Century learning centers.
Overview: Subchapter V
Subchapter V, Promoting Informed Parental Choice and
Innovative Programs, covers 20 programs, charter and
magnet schools, and providing funds for improving
education such as:
1. partnerships in character education;
2. for students who are gifted and talented;
3. foreign language assistance; physical education;
4. excellence in economic education; and
5. grants to improve the mental health of children;
Programs are designed to afford parents better choices while
creating innovative programs, especially if local boards are
unresponsive to parental and student needs.
Overview: Subchapters VI-VII
Subchapter VI, Flexibility and Accountability, contains
three major sections: improving academic achievement,
rural education initiatives, and general provisions.
Subchapter VII, Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska
Native Education, supports the efforts of States, local
boards, and post-secondary educational institutions
serving target populations.
Overview: Subchapter VIII
Subchapter VIII, Impact Aid, offers aid to local boards with
substantial and continuing financial burdens due to the
acquisition of real property by the federal government.
Impact Aid covers children
1) who live, and whose parents work on, federal property;
2) whose parents are in the military and live in low-rent housing;
3) who are part of heavy concentrations of children whose parents are
federal employees but do not reside on federal property
Impact Aid covers districts
1) experiencing sudden and substantial increases or decreases in
enrollments due to military realignments;
2) need special help with capital expenditures for construction projects.
Overview: Subchapter IX
Subchapter IX, General Provisions, contains boilerplate:
1. reviews definitions;
2. flexibility in the use of administrative and other funds;
3. program coordination;
4. waivers;
5. uniform provisions, including participation by students
and teachers in non-public schools;
6. complaint processes for participation of non-public
schools; and
7. evaluations.
3. Overview: Key Elements
Key elements in the NCLB intend to
1. make boards accountable for student achievement,
particularly by imposing standards for annual yearly
progress for students and districts;
2. require officials to rely on effective research-based
teaching methods;
3. improve academic achievement among students who are
economically disadvantaged;
4. assist in preparing and recruiting HQTs;
5. afford parents better choices while creating innovative
programs, especially if local boards are unresponsive.
3a. Accountability
In making States and boards more accountable for
academic growth, the NCLB requires educators to devise
challenging academic standards for students.
States must create challenging academic content
standards in academic subjects that
“(I) specify what children are expected to know and be
able to do;
(II) contain coherent and rigorous content; and
(III) encourage the teaching of advanced skills.”
3a. Accountability
Challenging student achievement standards
“(I) are aligned with the State's academic content
standards;
(II) describe two levels of high achievement (proficient
and advanced) that determine how well children
master the material in the State academic content
standards; and
(III) describe a third level of achievement (basic) to
provide complete information about the progress of
the lower achieving children toward mastering the
proficient and advanced levels of achievement.”
3a. Accountability
Accountability systems for regular education must be based
on challenging State standards in reading and mathematics.
This requires annual testing of all students in grades 3-8 and
once in 9-12 beginning in the 2005-2006 academic year
along with annual Statewide progress objectives.
3a. Accountability
Testing must “be designed to ensure that all groups of
students meet or exceed their States’ levels of academic
achievement.”
Even though 95% of students with disabilities must take
part in annual assessments based on State standards, the
NCLB permits alternative assessments for such measures.
3a. Accountability
Accountability deals with whether districts achieve annual yearly
progress (AYP) “in a manner that
(i) applies the same high standards of academic achievement to all
public elementary school and secondary school students in the
State;
(ii) is statistically valid and reliable;
(iii) results in continuous and substantial academic improvement for
all students;
(iv) measures the progress of public elementary schools, secondary
schools and local educational agencies and the State based
primarily on the academic assessments described in paragraph
(3); [and]
(v) includes separate measurable annual objectives for continuous
and substantial improvement for students who attend public
elementary and secondary school, specifically those who are
economically disadvantaged, from major racial and ethnic
groups, with disabilities, and have limited English proficiency.”
3a. Accountability
As to student outcomes, the NCLB makes an exception
to the extent that States are not required to disaggregate
data on students who were recently identified if the
number of children in a category is insufficient to yield
statistically reliable information or the results would
reveal personally identifiable information about
individual students.
3a. Accountability
Finally, the NCLB permits States, at their option, to include
other academic indicators for students, measured separately
for each group, such as achievement on additional State or
locally administered assessments, decreases in grade-tograde retention rates, attendance rates, and changes in the
percentages of students completing gifted and talented,
advanced placement, and college preparatory courses.
3a. Accountability
If local boards or schools fail to meet their AYP goals,
then significant accountability measures come into play.
In schools failing to meet their goals for two consecutive
years, officials must develop comprehensive plans with
support from the State and/or local boards.
Title I schools that serve children who are most at-risk and
that fail to reach AYP for two consecutive years are faced
with three options.
3a. Accountability
First, and most draconian, parents must be offered the
option of transferring their children to other schools
within the system.
While this option has yet to be applied, it all but
guarantees considerable legal challenges.
3a. Accountability
Second, parents must be notified that their children are
entitled to State-approved supplemental educational services
such as after school/weekend tutoring from private sources.
Notice must
1) explain the effect of and reasons why schools were
identified as failing and must be in a language that, to the
extent practicable, they can readily understand.
2) offer parents the chance to become involved in addressing
the academic issues that caused the schools that their
children attend to be identified as failing or in need of
improvement.
3a. Accountability
Third, educators must continue to provide schools in need of
improvement with technical assistance while taking appropriate
corrective action such as school restructuring.
In other words, if a school fails to improve after a full year of
corrective action, then local officials must
1) inform parents of their right to transfer their children to other
schools,
2) continue to provide supplemental services, and
3) prepare to make arrangements for alternative governance.
3a. Accountability
Under the alternative governance provisions, schools can
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
reopen as public charter schools,
replace all or most of their staff (including the
principal),
permit a private management company to take over
schools,
permit the State Education Agency to operate schools,
or
allow some other form of major restructuring.
3b. Highly Qualified Teachers (HQTs)
Central to the NCLB’s mandate is that all students should be
taught by HQTs in core academic subjects.
According to the NCLB’s regulations, “[t]he term ‘core
academic subjects’ means English, reading or language arts,
mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and
government, economics, arts, history, and geography.”
3b. HQTs
The NCLB divides teachers who must become “highly qualified”
into two groups: new and experienced.
1. New HQTs in elementary schools must:
a) possess at least bachelors’ degrees and
b) demonstrate, by passing rigorous State, rather than
federal, tests, that they have subject knowledge and
teaching skills in reading, writing, mathematics, and other
areas of basic elementary school curriculum.
3b. HQTs
2. New HQTs in middle and secondary schools must
a) possess at least bachelors’ degrees
b) demonstrate high levels of competency in each of the
subjects they teach either by passing rigorous State
academic subject tests in each of these areas or
successfully complete academic majors, graduate degrees,
course work equivalent to undergraduate academic
majors, or advanced certification in credentialing in these
areas.
3b. HQTs
Under the NCLB, teachers in elementary, middle, or
secondary schools who are not new, must
1. possess at least bachelors’ degrees,
2. meet the requirements for teachers who are new to the
profession, and
3. pass rigorous State tests or demonstrate competence in
all academic subjects in which they teach.
3b. HQTs
Since the HQT provisions apply to special education,
officials must “take measurable steps to recruit, hire, train,
and retain highly qualified school personnel to provide
special education and related services” for students with
disabilities.
In order to be classified as HQT, subject area teachers in
special education must
1. a) be certified fully in special education
b) or pass State-designed special education licensure
examinations and
2. possess bachelors’ degrees while demonstrating
knowledge of each subject for which they are the
primary instructors.
3b. HQTs
New special education teachers have until up to two years
after they are hired to become “highly qualified” in different
subjects as long as they are fully certificated in at least one
academic area.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act adds that
while teachers who satisfy its HQT requirements also
qualify for this title under the NCLB, the law does not create
a private right of action that can be judicially enforced to
ensure that children are taught by such teachers.
3c. Funding and Support for HQTs
NCLB provides funds to States and local boards to offer
activities to support HQTs.
Pursuant to the NCLB, local school officials can transfer up
to 50% of their federal NCLB grant to Title I funds in order
to target resources as they deem appropriate.
The Federal government also supports the development of
teachers in the needed subject areas of mathematics,
sciences, special education, and languages through such
innovative programs as Troops for Teachers and Transition
to Teaching.
3c. Funding and Support for HQTs
Along with NCLB based assistance to States and local
boards, Federal law offers student loan forgiveness of up to
$5,000 for HQTs who serve for five consecutive complete
school years in low-income schools.
Full-time secondary school HQTs in mathematics or science
or elementary, or secondary school teachers whose primary
responsibility is to provide special education to children
with disabilities, may receive up to $17,500 in student loan
forgiveness.
4. Legal Issues and the NCLB
Courts have essentially agreed that when Congress enacts
legislation under its Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, spending
power, the typical remedy for noncompliance by States or
other school officials with federally imposed conditions is
the threat of the termination of federal funds rather than
permitting individuals to file suit in their own names.
Thus, courts have been unreceptive to challenges.
4. Legal Issues
As educational leaders in the United States strive to
implement the NCLB, five inter-related concerns emerged
with regard to students and programmatic issues that may
open the doors to controversy, if not litigation.
4a. Student-Programmatic Issues
First, an argument can be made that the NCLB’s
accountability provisions, which rely on high-stakes testing,
are problematic since they place greater emphasis on
systemic results rather than the progress of individual
children.
As such, the NCLB should pay more attention to
formative rather than summative evaluations meaning that
educators should work to identify areas where children are
in need and work to strengthen their weakness rather than
rely on high stakes tests.
4a. Student-Programmatic Issues
High stakes tests. These tests can be counter productive not
only because children run the risk of simply studying for
tests rather than for broader understandings of material, but
also since placing too much emphasis on a single
examination imposes enormous pressure on teaches and
principals that is passed on to the students in a way that is
antithetical to the process of education.
4a. Student-Programmatic Issues
Second, given the impact that high stakes testing can have
on students, staff, and schools systems, NCLB requires
assessments to ensure that tests fairly measure student
learning while being free from racial-cultural bias.
Boards must administer tests that
1. are valid, reliable measures of what students have been
taught; and,
2. afford students sufficient notice that they must pass them
in order to earn diplomas and/or specify areas in need of
additional instruction.
4a. Student-Programmatic Issues
Third, in placing great emphasis on the results of high stakes
testing, the NCLB fails to consider where children started or
to treat them as individuals in measuring their progress.
NCLB assessments measure primarily basic skills, as crucial
as they are, while largely disregarding the arts and humanities.
Yet, tests must do more to ensure that students are exposed to
an array of topics, especially children from families of low
socio-economic status since they are unlikely to have the
broadening enrichment opportunities that their peers from
families that are more financially well-off can enjoy.
4a. Student-Programmatic Issues
Fourth, since the NCLB permits parents to remove their
children from failing schools, it may create the perception
that it is spawning conditions whereby urban, and other,
schools are being abandoned.
Insofar as such a situation runs the risk of exacerbating
racial and economic segregation in metropolitan areas by
creating what is essentially de facto racial segregation,
educators must work to eliminate such inequities or
face legal challenges.
4a. Student-Programmatic Issues
Fifth, the NCLB may erode support for programming such
as gifted education. In fact, parents of children who are
gifted have voiced concerns that the NCLB pressures
educators to provide resources for poor performing students
at the expense of their children.
While the courts disagree on the rights of gifted children, if
educators ignore their needs, controversy is likely to ensue
as parents seek equitable educational opportunities for their
children.
4b. School Staff and Systems
Three inter-related issues that are all but certain to generate
litigation involve the employment status of faculty and staff.
These concerns emerge in light of the Contracts Clause of the
Constitution, Article I, Section 10, that provides, in part, that “no
State shall ... pass any ... law impairing the obligation of
contracts.”
The Framers realized that unless contracts could be relied on
without possible later changes or abrogation by States, a
democratic society could neither progress nor develop.
Teachers and their unions will undoubtedly rely on this provision
since tenure and job security are contractual relationships that can
only be changed prospectively.
4b. School Staff and Systems
First, it is unclear what will happen to tenured teachers who fail
to achieve HQT status. Since the NCLB was implemented after
these teachers were hired and received permanent contracts, it is
unlikely that their contracts can be terminated for failing to meet
these goals, especially if they have taught successfully.
While courts consistently uphold State certification standards for
teachers, unless or until they replace statutes which permit
teachers to receive permanent certification, with other plans that
statutorily eliminate tenure, this remains an open question subject
to judicial interpretation.
4b. School Staff and Systems
Second, insofar as the NCLB permits parents to transfer
their children out of schools that are identified as failing,
resulting cut backs in staff may make it necessary for
teachers and other staff to accept involuntary transfers.
However, in school systems with collective bargaining
contracts addressing teacher assignments, this is certainly a
topic that will generate controversy and litigation.
4b. School Staff and Systems
Third, the NCLB permits boards to replace all or most of the
staff, including principals, in schools that failed to achieve
their AYP goals.
If boards must impose do so, then teachers and their unions
will pursue administrative and judicial avenues possible to
retain their jobs.
4b. School Staff and Systems
In other words, although NCLB authorizes boards to dismiss
educators in failing schools, to the extent that teachers have
acquired permanent status through tenure, they have
protectable substantive due process rights entitling them to
procedural due process before they can be dismissed.
Thus, while NCLB permits such a dramatic step, States will
have to act to change their statutes on the rights of educators
in public schools or face an onslaught of litigation.
5. Evaluation
1. 100% proficiency by 2014 is unattainable and unrealistic;
no country has done it, even under better economic
conditions than the present.
2014 is an arbitrary date set by Congress – it assumes that
most States would have to improve student proficiency at
a rate far greater than ever achieved anywhere . . . has led
to attempts by State officials and educators to play games.
Weaknesses
2.
States’ freedom to define “proficiency,” create the tests
to measure it, and set AYP benchmarks:
Thus, there can be 50 different definitions of
proficiency as some States have lowered their standards
and cut scores to make AYP.
3.
Impact of failure to comply not meaningful: so far no
consequences for entire States . . . and corrective action
or restructuring does not guarantee improvement.
May need to include vouchers and more charter
schools.
4. Funding: in spite of increased spending, the federal
government lacks the control over schools and districts to
enforce the NCLB’s mandates.
This is especially true in Mississippi where Gov. Haley
Barbour’s December proposal was to cut 68% in aid to
special education, gifted, and vocational education
programs, a move that will impact the State’s ability to
meet its NCLB goals.
6. The Future of NCLB
Issues in Need of Resolution
NOTE: Reauthorization is overdue: later this year?
1. Drop the unrealistic goal of 100% proficiency by 2014
2. How to regulate increased Federal (from 17.4 billion in
FY 2001 to 24.9 billion in FY 2009) and State spending
on education . . . especially for testing
3. Address limited flexibility and bureaucracy that NCLB
created
6. The Future of NCLB
4. Reconsider the over-emphasis on accountability in
reading and mathematics that distorts the larger picture
of student achievement . . . perhaps add science and
foreign languages
5.
Examine NCLB’s impact on federalism and the need to
restore State and local control of Education
6. The Future of NCLB
6. HQTs should be determined by a combination of
classroom effectiveness based on student achievement
data and not just teacher examinations
7. Additional resources should be devoted to help States
upgrade their student and teacher data systems
6. The Future of NCLB
Republicans
In 2007 introduced the A-Plus Act (Academic Partnerships
Lead Us to Success) to replace NCLB to allow States to opt
out of federal requirements and enter into individual
performance contracts with U.S. DOE to obtain federal
education funds
Teacher unions
- seek no additional accountability for schools or teachers;
- would be happy to repeal NCLB;
- would like more funds if reauthorized
6. The Future of NCLB
Congressman George Miller – Democrat,
Chair, House Education and Labor Committee,
original sponsor of NCLB seeks to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Use a growth model to assess student progress
Employ various data in addition to standardized tests to
determine AYP, boards could devise their own tests
Develop different consequences for schools failing
AYP
Create stronger incentives to attract teachers to high
need schools and specialty areas like mathematics,
science, special education, and English language
learners
6. Future of NCLB
Obama Administration:
1.
Seeks to improve the quality of standardized tests and
raise standards so graduates are college and work ready
2
Wants HQTs assigned equitably to all districts, rich and
poor
3.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan supports national
academic standards and assessments
4.
Obama and Duncan support ‘performance pay’ for
teachers
6. Future of NCLB
5.
Duncan has set aside $250 million to help States
upgrade their data systems
6.
Obama and Duncan want to spend at least $3.5 billion
to push local education officials to close failing schools
and reopen them with new staff. Duncan wants the
5,000 worst-performing schools, approximately one
percent of all U.S. schools, turned around in five years.
7.
Duncan wants States to report whether they use student
achievement data in their local teacher and principal
evaluation systems