Momentum is building for reform of federal education policy as the new session of Congress begins. As Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., examine ways to reform the 670-page No Child Left Behind Act, there are several factors to weigh.
Federalism
The consensus is that any proposal likely to pass Congress would reduce the federal government’s influence over education policy. “It’s quite clear that Republicans in Congress are eager to send lots of power back to the states when it comes to education,” Michael Petrilli, the president of the Fordham Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “The question is, really, how far will they go?”
Reducing federal power may seem unlikely to get President Obama’s approval, but Obama’s own reform plan sought to give states and districts more flexibility in several areas. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan testified before Congress that more flexibility for states on education is working. Furthermore, No Child Left Behind is increasingly unpopular, with an August 2012 Gallup poll showing that only 16 percent of Americans think it has made public education better, with almost twice as many, 29 percent, saying it has made public education worse.
“If they don’t go bold on reform this time around, it will represent a missed opportunity to … advance federalism in education,” Lindsey Burke, an education fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Examiner. She suggested that states should be allowed to opt-out of No Child Left Behind’s programs. The Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, would essentially permit this by giving states their federal education funding as a block grant.
Annual Testing
One of the biggest complaints over No Child Left Behind is the increase of standardized testing in schools and the consequences attached to the results of those tests. The complaint is that this prompts educators to teach to the test instead of teaching what is truly important.
“They’re going to want to do something to reduce the amount, or at least the importance of, testing in the law,” Neal McCluskey, the associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, told the Examiner. “There’s sort of a revolt in many states against standardized testing.”
But that does not mean testing should be eliminated entirely. “It’s important if you want to be able to judge schools in terms of the impact they’re having on student learning,” Petrilli said. “You need those annual tests so you can see if students are making progress from year to year.” McCluskey predicted, “They’ll still require annual testing, but there won’t be any federally-mandated consequences for how you do on those tests.” However, it’s still unknown how much the federal government will be involved in the content of testing.
Reformers seem likely to keep annual testing requirements, but merely for analytic purposes. This should reduce, but not eliminate, teaching to the test.
Federal Requirements
One of the most widely-panned provisions of No Child Left Behind requires schools to show adequate yearly progress in reading, math and graduation rates. The concept was not new to No Child Left Behind, but the consequences of not demonstrating yearly progress were. The longer a school fails to make adequate yearly progress, the more dramatic its required restructuring. Schools can even be taken over by the state or face mass replacements of school staff. Burke said the adequate yearly progress requirements were well-intended but had negative consequences, such as states diluting their proficiency standards. “Eliminating [adequate yearly progress] is certainly a step that should be taken.”
Still, some requirements imposed on schools by No Child Left Behind are broadly viewed as beneficial. For instance, transparency required of testing data is useful for school evaluations. “All the information we’ve got has been critically important,” Petrilli said. This data can be broken down by race and other factors, to show which schools are letting down minority and underprivileged students.
Department of Education waivers from regulations have been problematic. “If Congress was very clear in No Child Left Behind that the executive department can’t give waivers with conditions attached to them, which is what they have done, … it would be great progress,” said McCluskey. The waivers are viewed by some as a federal overreach, since they come with requirements different from No Child Left Behind.
Portable Funding
One additional option for No Child Left Behind reform would be to tie federal funding to students instead of schools. “Giving states the option to allow … funding to be portable, to follow a child to a public or private school of choice is a critical revision,” said Burke. State programs tying federal funding to a student would likely be similar to a voucher program, where students can put a share of their government funding toward tuition at a private school.
While many education reformers support portable funding and school vouchers, their inclusion in No Child Left Behind reform might render the bill un-passable. “If there’s anything akin to school vouchers … the unions aren’t going to support that,” said Petrilli.
It will be difficult for an education reform bill to pass the Senate and be signed by Obama without support from teachers’ unions. But Congress has no shortage of options to garner public support for reform. Whatever options they choose, it is clear that any federal education reform in 2014 will reduce overreach and give states more power to shape education policy as they choose.
