Report Terms NCLB “Excessively Intrusive,” Says Adequacy Cases Prove Need for More Funding

On February 23, 2005, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), a bipartisan organization that serves the legislatures of all 50 states, released a report criticizing the federal No Child Left Behind law (NCLB) and recommending extensive changes. Key recommendations include:

Remove obstacles that stifle state innovations and undermine state programs that were working before passage of NCLB;
Fully fund the law and provide states the financial flexibility to meet its goals;
Remove the one-size-fits-all method that measures student performance and encourage more sophisticated and accurate measures;
Recognize that some schools face special challenges, including adequately teaching students with disabilities and English language learners. The law also needs to recognize the differences among rural, suburban and urban schools.

In the report, the states request a Government Accountability Office review to determine NCLB's costs and whether it is an unfunded mandate that violates federal law. Moreover, the states believe the 100-percent proficiency goal is not statistically achievable and that struggling schools need the opportunity to address problems before losing parts of their student populations.

The report is the result of a 10-month study of the law by a special NCSL task force co-chaired by New York State Senator Stephen Saland (R) and Minnesota State Senator Steve Kelley (D). The task force held hearings in six cities, consulted with experts and practitioners, and studied relevant research.

Federal Role

Senator Saland commented that with NCLB, “the federal government’s role has become excessively intrusive in the day-to-day operations of public education.” The report remarks that, prior to NCLB, most states had been engaged in “standards-based” reform of education, but NCLB has curtailed state innovation and undermined the ongoing state reform efforts. The report further asserts that NCLB’s methods may unconstitutionally infringe on state power by coercing participation by states instead of using financial inducement, and by attaching ambiguous conditions to monetary grants to states.

Additional Funding to Close Achievement Gap

The issue of sufficient funding of NCLB has been the subject of much debate across the country. In the report, the states point out the need to look at the costs of administering the law and of bringing students up to state academic standards, and conclude that the latter costs are much higher than many supporters of NCLB claim. As explained in the report:

“Adequacy” cases have increasingly become the main authority for determining what is needed to overcome the achievement gap, and they consistently find additional resources to be the answer. These findings directly contradict the theory that NCLB’s goals can be accomplished without significant new funding.

Also, the report notes that external factors affecting the achievement gap, such as poor health care and housing shortages, raise the costs even more.

Measuring Student Progress and Other Concerns

The report examines what it describes as the law’s inaccurate measurements of student progress and recommends numerous changes, such as allowing a growth model and multiple measures of achievement. The report also declares that NCLB undermines efforts at improving performance in struggling schools and notes the many problems with NCLB implementation as it relates to students with disabilities and students learning English. Moreover, the report contends that the “highly qualified teacher” provisions of NCLB place undue burdens on hard-to-staff schools and recommends more flexibility for urban and rural schools.

Conclusion

A theme running through the NCSL report is the detrimental effect of NCLB on state-federal relations. The members of the task force worry that the law, by being overly rigid and prescriptive, is undermining state education reform efforts that have been in underway for almost thirty years.

Prepared February 23, 2005