NCLB Reauthorization Update

The momentum behind the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) slowed this week. With the August recess looming on the calendar, staffs in the House Committee on Education and Labor have been working overtime to complete a comprehensive reauthorization bill before the break. Yet, the adequate yearly progress (AYP) negotiations have bogged the process down and, on Wednesday, the ranking member of the House Education Committee, Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) stated that the legislation will not be ready until fall and that he will not support it unless it has the votes of the majority of Republican members. The education pundits who predicted a post-Presidential election 2009 reauthorization were, suddenly, all smiles.

Yet, that has not stopped Members of Congress from introducing important bills that will shape the final law. Last week, Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Richard Burr (R-NC) introduced the first comprehensive bill for the reauthorization of NCLB, S. 1775, the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2007.” This week, Senators Joe Lieberman, (I/D-CT) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) announced plans (not an actual bill yet) to introduce their comprehensive ESEA reauthorization bill, the "All Students Can Achieve Act."

According to a release by the Aspen Institute’s Commission on No Child Left Behind, who worked closely with Sen. Lieberman’s staff on the project, the soon to come Lieberman/Landrieu bill will advance many of the Commission’s priorities. The pending bill:

• Requires and funds the development of data systems to track individual student performance over time and to link that performance to teachers, programs and services. States with adequate data systems and plans for measuring effectiveness would be able to use growth models for determining AYP..
• Requires the equitable distribution of non-Federal funds within school districts; provides incentives for school professionals, through teamwork in the poorest schools, to make the greatest improvements in student performance; provides funds for out-of-district transfers to public schools for students without viable alternatives; provides equitable funding and flexibility under the Charter School Program.
• Authorizes the National Assessment Governing Board to develop voluntary American learning standards and assessments in reading, math and science while ensuring that the standards and assessments are aligned with life, college and workplace readiness skills. States may choose to adopt these standards and assessments.
• Distinguishes those schools needing intensive interventions, i.e. schools with a majority of students missing AYP, from schools missing AYP for less than half the student population.
• Eliminates the restructuring option that permitted “any other major restructuring of the school's governance” while a limit is provided on the percentage of schools required to implement comprehensive restructuring within a single school district in a given year.
• Would allow states and districts successful at meeting AYP and at measuring teacher effectiveness to have greater flexibility in transferring funds to the most critical areas they have within No Child Left Behind.

The new bills are critical because they lay the framework for the coming reauthorization debates. Also, as all policy watchers knew heading into this year, the Commission’s focus on teacher effectiveness will be a critical part of the coming debates, and now the Commission has Senators Lieberman and Landrieu in their camp. While Representative McKeon may have slow-tracked the process, this should have the effect of fast tracking everyone’s efforts shape the early tone of the debates.

Resources:
Commission’s Recommendations for Reauthorization Included in Senate ‘All Students Can Achieve’ Bill, Commission on No Child Left Behind, July 18, 2007.
Michael Sandler, “McKeon Lays Down Marker for Education Law Renewal,” CQ Today, July 16, 2008.
Author: DAD