NCLB Update: Huddle Up

Not all is going according to plan for Representative George Miller, the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. The House discussion draft of Titles I through XI of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has created new allies in criticizing the proposal. As a rule a thumb, a bill that aggravates a wide spectrum of interested parties has a fair chance of success, but that chance diminishes when aggravation slides towards outrage.

In the case of the House discussion draft, that slide is now occurring. Notably, both advocates and critics of the current law have withdrawn their support for the draft bill as released. The Education Trust (Ed Trust), generally a supporter of NCLB, states that the law is moving in the right direction, but is “deeply troubled” by the multiple measures provision that would reduce academic transparency and create an incredibly complex accountability system. Ed Trust has also been very adamant that the draft language extending the time that English Language Learners could be tested in their native language (up to 7 years) would delay their transition in mainstream educational opportunities for too long. The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, exemplifying critics of the current law, have also withdrawn support for the current language. They argue that the testing provisions are still too heavily weighted on a single state exam and that, closer to the heart of the unions, the discussion draft is an intrusion on local collective bargaining and an offense to the efforts of states working to recruit and retain quality educators.

Hyperbole and euphemism, of course, are tools of the education policy trade, so there is a lot of inaccurate characterization occurring. While the rhetoric does not add clarity to the discussion draft (quite the opposite), it does illustrate the political obstacles that Miller will have to navigate in the coming weeks.

What, then, will Miller do to stop this slide from manageable aggravation to rhetorical outrage? According to House Education and Labor Committee staff, the Democratic staffers are huddling on their strategy and reviewing the 3,000 comments (and growing) they have received. They have not met with Republican staff on the matter to date but will do so before Chairman Miller introduces the bill and attempts to move it through the House before the close of the month. “I am not sure what the trends are yet,” said one staffer, “other than everyone seems to hate it.” We will continue to monitor the developments with scrutiny in the coming days.

Author: DAD