Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the new chairman of the Senate education committee, on Tuesday outlined how he would overhaul No Child Left Behind — a signature achievement of President George W. Bush that has been controversial among conservatives because it expanded the federal role in education.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Alexander said reforming No Child Left Behind is the first thing on his agenda as the new chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Alexander called No Child Left Behind reform “8 years overdue.” The law technically expired in 2007, but its policy provisions are still in effect, which has made it increasingly hard on schools to comply with its mandates.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan responded to Alexander’s draft proposal Wednesday, saying, “I appreciate that Sen. Alexander plans to discuss his draft with his colleagues and to solicit public feedback, but I also am concerned that his proposal makes optional far too much of what the law needs to ensure the promise of its title.”
Here are a few main points of Alexander’s discussion draft of the bill:
Testing
The draft has two different options for testing requirements. According to Education Week, one option would mostly keep the current system, where states test students in third grade through eighth grade, and again in high school. The other option gives states flexibility on designing their own testing systems, which would not be subject to approval by the federal Department of Education.
Evaluating teachers through student testing would become optional. States would also be able to set their own accountability standards without approval from the Department of Education. Transparency standards would still be maintained. For instance, graduation rates would still need to be reported and student data must be broken down by multiple factors to expose any educational achievement gaps.
Federal power
The bill is a sharp rebuke of overreach by the federal Department of Education. Alexander said the department has been acting as a “national school board” under Duncan by granting No Child Left Behind waivers to 42 states that included burdensome federal conditions. The bill would limit the ability of the department to offer waivers or extra financial incentives in exchange for adopting specific policies.
It would also keep the department from interfering with state adoption of Common Core standards, stating “the Secretary shall not have the authority to mandate, direct, control, coerce, or exercise any direction or supervision over any of the challenging State academic standards adopted or implemented by a State.”
Portable funding
Alexander’s draft bill would allow states to make federal funding for children portable to other public schools. Only families with income below the poverty level would be eligible. This is a form of school choice that would allow students to change schools if they decide their current one is unsatisfactory.
This part of the draft bill is sure to raise the ire of teachers unions. Mary Kusler, the director of government relations at the National Education Association, told the Washington Examiner in an article last week that portable funding is a “novel policy concept that does not work in actuality.”
The Senate HELP Committee will hold its first hearing on the No Child Left Behind reform on Jan. 21.
