House Committee on Education and Labor
U.S. House of Representatives

Republicans
Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon
Ranking Member

Fiscally responsible reforms for students, workers and retirees.

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Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 28, 2008

CONTACT: Alexa Marrero
(202) 225-4527

McKeon Lauds Proposals to Expand School Flexibility, Give Parents Stronger Voice in Education
Top Republican on House Education Panel Faults Congressional Democrats for Failing to Reform No Child Left Behind

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), the senior Republican on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, today congratulated U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings for her work on a package of much-needed reforms to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). At the same time, he criticized the Democratic majority in Congress for its refusal to reform the six-year-old law, arguing that NCLB must be made more flexible and responsive to individual schools’ needs.  Included in the regulatory package proposed today are important steps to help parents improve their children’s education, including enhanced opportunities for free tutoring and public school transfer options.

“Although great progress has been made, education reform in this country still has a long way to go.  Parents lack an adequate voice in their children’s education, and the choices available under the law are too often withheld by an education establishment intent on preserving its stranglehold on reform,” said McKeon.  “While far more work needs to be done, the steps outlined today will positively impact students and families by expanding choice and flexibility under the law.”

McKeon highlighted two key elements of the NCLB reform package: the requirement that parents be given adequate notice of their right to transfer their children from underperforming schools before the beginning of a new school year, and the requirement that federal funds set aside to support disadvantaged children seeking free tutoring or the option to transfer to a better performing public school are actually used for that purpose.

“NCLB was a watershed moment in the drive toward educational freedom in America.  Never before had parents been empowered to get their children extra help or place them in a new classroom when their school was struggling to teach its students,” said McKeon.  “While hundreds of thousands of students have already been able to take advantage of these new choices, many more stand to benefit from the reforms outlined today, which finally make clear that schools must give parents the tools and information necessary to exercise their options under the law.”

In addition to the proposals to expand parental options in education, the reform package outlined by Secretary Spellings would:

  • Allow all states to implement a growth model to measure individual student achievement over time;
  • Require states to set a uniform and reliable graduation rate, and track graduation rates for low-income, minority, special education, and English language learning students – those students NCLB is intended to help;
  • Clarify that states can use multiple assessments, instead of just one test, when determining student academic achievement;
  • Provide more information to parents by requiring data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) on state and local report cards;
  • Ensure students are appropriately included in the states’ accountability systems by requiring states to justify their ‘n’ size, which is used to determine whether to include a subgroup; and
  • Strengthen the assistance given to schools that continue to fall short of expectations by ensuring the interventions implemented as part of a school’s restructuring plan are rigorous and comprehensive.

“There is no issue I hear more about from teachers, parents, and school leaders across the country than the need to reform No Child Left Behind,” said McKeon.  “The reforms proposed today help address some of the many challenges faced by our schools, but they do not excuse the failure by congressional Democrats to reform the law.  We need to give schools more flexibility in what programs they operate and how they allocate resources; we need to support teachers by providing better training and professional development and by rewarding them for their success in the classroom with performance pay; and we need to abandon the one-size-fits-all approach that treats all struggling schools the same.”

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