Fwd: [arn2-strategy] Pressure Grows to Overhaul NCLB

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Lilliputians? You might want to write to Miller. Hes ours, remember (Concord).
<george.miller@mail.house.gov>

Susan

Begin forwarded message:

  From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>

  Date: Sat Apr 7, 2007 10:18:57 AM US/Pacific

  To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>, arn2-strategy
  <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>

  Subject: [arn2-strategy] Pressure Grows to Overhaul NCLB

  Reply-To: arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com

  BATTLE GROWS OVER RENEWING LANDMARK EDUCATION LAW

  New York Times -- April 7, 2007

  by Sam Dillon

  When President Bush and Democratic leaders put together the bipartisan

  coalition behind the federal No Child Left Behind Act, they managed to

  sidestep, override or flat out ignore decades of sentiment that

  education is fundamentally a prerogative of state and local government.

  Now, as the president and the same Democrats push to renew the landmark

  law, which has reshaped the face of American education with its mandates

  for annual testing, discontent with it in many states is threatening to

  undermine the effort in both parties.

  Arizona and Virginia are battling the federal government over rules for

  testing children with limited English. Utah is fighting over whether

  rural teachers there pass muster under the law. And Connecticut is two

  years into a lawsuit arguing that No Child Left Behind has failed to

  provide states federal financing to meet its requirements.

  Reacting to such disputes in state after state, dozens of Republicans in

  Congress are sponsoring legislation that would water down the law by

  allowing states to opt out of its testing requirements yet still receive

  federal money.

  On the other side of the political spectrum, 10 Democratic senators

  signed a letter last month saying that based on feedback from

  constituents, they consider the law’s testing mandates to be

  “unsustainable” and want an overhaul.

  “It’s going to be a brawl,” said Jack Jennings, a Democrat who as

  president of the Center on Education Policy has studied how the law has

  been set up in the 50 states. “The law is drawing opposition from the

  right because they are opposed to federal interference and from the left

  because of too much testing.”

  The law was passed in President Bush’s first year in office by large

  bipartisan majorities — 87 to 10 in the Senate and 381 to 41 in the

  House. Today it enjoys the support of a powerful, if unlikely, political

  threesome — Mr. Bush and the Democratic leaders of the education

  committees, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and

  Representative George Miller of California.

  But many members of Congress have heard years of complaints about the

  law from educators and parents in their states, and even lawmakers who

  support its goals believe that it is headed for a makeover, or that its

  revision could be postponed until after the 2008 election.

  No Child Left Behind greatly expanded the federal role in education with

  hundreds of directives. It requires states to test students in

  elementary and middle school every year and bring them to proficiency in

  reading and math by 2014. It also imposes sanctions on schools where

  scores consistently fall short of achievement targets.

  The Bush administration has itself suggested some new flexibility for

  states, proposing to give school officials more discretion in using

  federal money, along with changes that would extend federal power, like

  one requiring additional testing in high schools. Mr. Kennedy and Mr.

  Miller also want changes, including a strengthened emphasis on getting

  qualified teachers into classrooms with the neediest students and

  channeling federal help to schools that the law identifies as struggling.

  Foes and supporters of the law dispute whether the federal government’s

  role should be more robust or diminished. There are also disputes over

  how much money should go to education, how to create an accountability

  system that accurately identifies failing schools and whether to soften

  the 2014 deadline.

  A private bipartisan Commission on No Child Left Behind has called for

  significant strengthening of the federal role, including requiring all

  states to build a statewide computer system capable of tracking every

  student’s academic performance, at a cost of billions.

  “The theme to the Commission’s proposals is ‘Do more, and do what Uncle

  Sam tells you to do,’ ” two former Education Department officials,

  Chester E. Finn Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli, wrote recently. Mr. Finn

  served under President Ronald Reagan

  <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ronald_wilson_reagan/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,

  and Mr. Petrilli under Mr. Bush

  In contrast, a bill sponsored by Representative Peter Hoekstra,

  Republican of Michigan, and co-sponsored by 50 conservative Republicans

  in the House, including the minority whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, would

  greatly weaken Washington’s control by allowing states to opt out of the

  law’s testing requirements without losing federal money. Two Republican

  senators, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, have

  introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

  Whether the law can emerge strengthened or survive in any recognizable

  form depends on the alliance of President Bush, Senator Kennedy and

  Representative Miller.

  The two Democrats have fought Mr. Bush over the Iraq war, tax cuts and

  other policies. But as the ranking Democrats on the education committees

  in 2001, they helped forge the law, negotiating big increases in

  education financing. They have since accused the Republicans of

  providing less money than promised.

  Still, in an interview, Mr. Miller expressed impatience with lawmakers

  who, he said, failed to understand the law’s strategic importance to the

  nation’s future.

  “You can get into a lot of petty politics, but there’s a mandate coming

  from across the country for us to improve this law,” Mr. Miller said.

  “There’s no other way for Congress to go. The C.E.O.s, the venture

  capitalists, all of them have commented on the need for America to

  improve its educational system. It’d be a major shock if we reneged on

  our federal leadership.”

  Mr. Miller, who hopes to get legislation through committee before the

  summer, added, “This should not be underestimated by a bunch of

  Lilliputians trivializing the issue.”

  As he works to build consensus, Mr. Miller will contend with opposition

  to the law’s testing requirements from teachers’ unions influential with

  Democrats. He can count on support from business and civil rights groups.

  The influential superintendents in the Council of the Great City

  Schools, which represents the nation’s 66 largest urban districts, have

  prepared 180 recommendations, including the adoption of uniform national

  academic standards, starting with math and science, said Michael

  Casserly, the council’s executive director. “We’re coming at our

  recommendations from an overall position of support, not one of trying

  to bring down the law,” he said.

  Among Republicans, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is working to

  minimize defections. This week, she has been stumping for the law in

  Arizona where all four House Republicans have signed on to Mr.

  Hoekstra’s bill. Ms. Spellings’s press secretary, Katherine McLane,

  said: “We’re optimistic about getting N.C.L.B. reauthorized this year.”

  Still, many state, suburban and rural district superintendents dislike

  the law, and their views are influential with Congressional delegations.

  Tom Horne, a Republican who is Arizona’s superintendent of public

  instruction, has feuded with Ms. Spellings over a ruling that gives the

  state’s schools one year to teach immigrant students English before

  schools are accountable for their scores on exams, which under Arizona

  law must be given in English.

  Ms. McLane said the regulations “give states significant flexibility

  while still holding them accountable for the progress of

  English-learning students.” But Mr. Horne said the department should

  make an allowance for Arizona, facing an endless flow of new immigrants.

  “You cannot run a complex, continentwide education system through

  micromanagement by people living in an ivory tower at the Department of

  Education in Washington,” Mr. Horne said.

  Utah has rankled under the law’s requirement that educators have the

  equivalent of a college degree in every subject they teach. Few teachers

  want to serve in Utah’s remote towns, where authorities often ask a

  teacher with a math degree to pitch in and teach, say, geography.

  “That’s how rural America works, and Washington doesn’t get it,” said

  Patti Harrington, the state superintendent of public instruction.

  Representative Rob Bishop, who represents Utah’s rural western half,

  said he shared her view.

  Representative John B. Larson, Democrat of Connecticut, voted for the

  law in 2001. Today he has many grievances with it, including his belief

  that Connecticut has had to spend millions of its own money to meet the

  testing requirements. Like many in his state, he said, he would like the

  law to be repealed. “But I respect Miller and Kennedy and believe it can

  be fixed,” Mr. Larson said.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/education/07child.html

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