Recent NCLB Developments
Update on NCLB Growth Model Pilot
After twenty states submitted proposals to
participate in a pilot to use growth model calculations
to determine adequate yearly progress (AYP), the Department
of Education (ED) recently announced the selection of
eight proposals—Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware,
Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, and Tennessee—to
move to the next round of reviews. Seven of the original
20 proposals were for test runs beginning next school
year (2006-2007) and will be reviewed at a later date.
The final list of states approved to utilize growth
models for the 2005-2006 school year will be released
in May.
Although each state proposed a way of tracking the
progress of individual students as an additional method
of meeting AYP requirements, the selected states have
widely varying proposals. To view the individual state
proposals and letters from ED, click here.
The Council
of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) held meetings
with 36 states earlier this year to help state policymakers
understand how particular types of growth models could
work in different states. In order to increase the level
of knowledge among state policymakers about the different
types of growth models, CCSSO prepared the publication,
Policymakers’
Guide to Growth Models for School Accountability: How
do Accountability Models Differ.
First Hearing Held by Commission on NCLB
The Commission on No Child Left Behind, headed by former
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and
former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, hosted its first
of five monthly hearings on No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
The first hearing, “Quality Teachers Equals Quality
Schools,” was held on April 11th at California
State Polytechnic University in Pomona, California.
Through this hearing, the Commission sought to determine
the effects of NCLB’s highly qualified teacher
provisions with the goal of informing the Commission’s
recommendations on how NCLB can assist in the improvement
of teacher quality, recruitment, retention, and distribution.
Individuals and organizations may submit written comments
up to 10 pages in length for the hearing record by sending
an email
by April 18, 2006.
States Support NEA’s NCLB Lawsuit
On March 31, 2006, several states and national organizations
registered their support of the National Education Association’s
lawsuit against U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret
Spellings, Pontiac v. Spellings. The NEA has appealed
a federal district court’s dismissal of the case,
and the states
of Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Oklahoma,
and Wisconsin, in addition to the governor
of Pennsylvania, the American
Association of School Administrators, and state
and local officials in California, together filed
four separate amicus briefs in support of this position.
The NEA has argued that according to Section 9527(a)
of NCLB itself, NCLB is an unfunded mandate. The appeal
disputes the district court’s interpretation of
Section 9527(a) and argues that the plain meaning of
the statute is “that states and school districts
may not be required, in complying with NCLB, ‘to
spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under
this Act.’”
Since 2002, Congress has appropriate $31 billion less
than what was initially authorized to fulfill NCLB’s
requirements; most recently, Congress cut $1 billion
from the 2005 funding level for fiscal year 2006. California
Assemblymember Jerome Horton asserts, “No Child
Left Behind is willfully inadequate. This policy fails
to address widely accepted socio-economic and education
funding disparities, and only exacerbates the problem
with a $31 billion shortfall.”
For background on the case, see “Briefs
Filed on Motion to Dismiss.”
First Attempt at School Takeover Using NCLB
For the first time since the implementation of No Child
Left Behind (NCLB), a state superintendent has attempted
to use one of the more extreme options available through
the law to improve schools with consistently low test
scores: state takeover. The state schools superintendent
of Maryland, Dr. Nancy Grasmick, won the approval of
the state school board to take control over 11 Baltimore
middle and high schools. Baltimore officials would be
required to find charter groups, universities, or for-profit
companies to run the schools.
The sudden announcement that the state intended to
revoke the city’s control over these schools quickly
provoked a political firestorm. City officials and community
leaders in Baltimore have accused the superintendent
of making use of this NCLB option in an effort to support
Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and to discredit
Baltimore’s Democratic mayor, Martin O’Malley,
as he seeks his party’s nomination to run for
governor. After a Democratic majority pushed a bill
through the Maryland Legislature to block the state
schools superintendent from removing the operation of
11 Baltimore schools from city control, State Governor
Ehrlich vetoed the bill. Partisan tension was high on
the last day of Maryland’s legislative session,
April 11, as the Democratic majority overrode the Governor’s
veto. With this action, the state is prohibited from
intervening in the Baltimore schools’ management
for one year.
Prepared by Elisabeth Thurston, April 13, 2006
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