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Washington, DC -- Just weeks after Congress cut federal funding support for K-12 education, today marks the fourth anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act. To date, the cumulative shortfall since enactment in 2001 is $40.1 billion.
"If Congress was held to the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, we would be 'underperforming' for our K-12 students," commented Congressman David Wu.
While Congressman Wu agrees NCLB enacted many good reforms to improve accountability, parental involvement, and teacher quality, the law is under-funded and is being implemented in a manner that is inflexible and unhelpful to students, teachers, and administrators. Many states and school districts continue to struggle to implement these new requirements.
In December, without Congressman Wu's support, H.R. 3010, the Labor-Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2006 passed the U.S. House of Representatives with $784 million in cuts to the NCLB Act.
Congressman Wu has introduced legislation, the No Child Left Behind Improvement and Flexibility Act, to improve the law by incorporating flexibility to help Oregon schools implement these reforms while maintaining the Act's strong standards and accountability provisions.
"In order to meet the intent of the law--to improve education for our children--we need to build in some flexibility for every state," stated Congressman Wu. "My legislation would allow all schools to measure results over time, rather than this inflexible law which is a public policy equivalent to giving students only A's or F's."
Congressman Wu's legislation fully assesses a school's performance by acknowledging all progress made as the school works toward meeting the federal mandates. His legislation allows schools to use a growth model to demonstrate they are making continuous and substantial academic improvement for all students over time.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education announced it will soon allow a few states to measure academic progress over time. However, the difference between Congressman Wu's legislation and the recent announcement is that the department is limiting the use of the growth model to just ten states.
Congressman Wu continued, "While I welcome the flexibility, it is being implemented unfairly. Too many schools are at risk of losing vital education support. Each school should be afforded the opportunity to demonstrate its hard work is paying off."
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Congressman Wu drafted his legislation based on the collective experience of the Oregon education community to improve NCLB and better support our schools as they work toward meeting strong accountability standards.
Below is a summary highlighting the provisions of Congressman Wu's legislation.
NCLB IMPROVEMENT AND FLEXIBILITY ACT
1. NCLB Improvement and Flexibility Act -- Assessments and Adequate Yearly Progress:
Improves the NCLB's standard on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) by allowing for a continuous growth model that allows schools to demonstrate they are making "continuous and substantial academic improvement" for all students.
Clarifies the law to state that a school fails to make AYP only if it fails to meet the measurable annual objective in the same subject for two consecutive years (current law only states fails to meet AYP for two consecutive years).
Acknowledging that year-to-year test results, by their nature, are not stable, NCLB allows states to average test data for up to three years for purposes of measuring AYP. The No Child Left Behind Improvement and Flexibility Act expands on this by allowing for additional approaches that are equally effective.
Allows for multiple up-to-date measures of student academic achievement, including measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding, to be considered when determining AYP.
2. NCLB Improvement and Flexibility Act -- Teacher Quality
Recognizing the unique circumstances of special education teachers, the No Child Left Behind Improvement and Flexibility Act allows those teachers who have obtained a degree in special education and full state certification, or passed the state teacher licensing examination as a special education teacher, to be considered "highly qualified".
Under NCLB, secondary teachers who hold Masters degrees and advanced certification or credentialing are considered "highly qualified." The No Child Left Behind Improvement and Flexibility Act expands this definition to Elementary teachers as well.
Allows for the portability of "Highly Qualified" Status
3. NCLB Improvement and Flexibility Act -- Special Education Students
Provides consistency with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). In many cases, NCLB conflicts with the requirements and standards of IDEA. The No Child Left Behind Improvement and Flexibility Act addresses this inconsistency by stating that the requirements of NCLB in no way supercede the requirements of IDEA.
4. NCLB Improvement and Flexibility Act -- Rural Schools
Acknowledges the challenges of Rural Schools. Due to their size and geographic isolation, rural schools oftentimes face a difficult challenge in meeting the highly qualified teacher requirements of NCLB, since it is unlikely for them to have a separate fully certified and licensed biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science teacher. The No Child Left Behind Improvement and Flexibility Act give rural schools additional flexibility in meeting the highly qualified teacher requirements. It also gives them flexibility when dealing with the new requirements of school choice since such alternatives may be impractical due to the distance between rural schools.
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