Editorial: USDOE Position on ESEA: Weak on Equity and Adequacy

Michael A. Rebell

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education issued a position paper on re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), formerly known as the No Child Left Behind Act. The “Blueprint for Reform,” would eliminate the unachievable requirement that 100% of the students in the country be proficient in challenging state standards by 2014 as well as the unworkable system of adequate yearly progress testing requirements to which it has been tied. The administration’s revisions would build on the four reform priorities of the federal stimulus act ( effective teachers, higher standards, better data systems and turning around low performing schools), drop the school transfer and private tutoring provisions and encourage the development of community schools and student access to comprehensive services such as health and after-school and summer programming.

In one area, however, the document is totally deficient: it provides no mechanism for assuring that high need schools will have the resources they need to overcome achievement gaps and reach the Obama administration’s newly stated goal, that by 2020 the United States will once again lead the world in college completion.

The Blueprint devotes one feeble paragraph to equity and adequacy issues, stating that:

“To give every student a fair chance to succeed, and give principals and teachers the resources to support student success, we will call on school districts and states to take steps to ensure equity, by such means as moving toward comparability in resources between high-and low-poverty schools.”

Unlike most of the other proposals in the document, this vague equity provision lacks meaningful substantive content and is not framed in terms of any requirements or incentives that would induce states and school districts to take this need seriously. Although pressing states to ensure adequate and equitable funding for all schools would be politically difficult, the fact is that federal aid still represents only about 10% of total education spending and without adequate state resources low achieving schools will not have the capacity to turn themselves around and to reach rigorous achievement goals.

In order to provide meaningful educational opportunity to all children and overcome achievement gaps, a re-authorized ESEA ( and future federal stimulus or Race to the Top or other incentive programs ) need to contain provisions that require each state to:

a. Articulate its concept of a “sound basic education” and (i) demonstrate that its current education finance system provides all students a meaningful opportunity to obtain a “sound basic education” or (ii) set out the steps they intend to take, with the assistance of federal funding, to ensure that their education finance system makes significant progress toward providing all students a meaningful opportunity to obtain such an education.

b. Submit at least every three years a cost analysis that provides reasonable estimates of the amount of funds needed to provide all students a meaningful opportunity to obtain a “sound basic education.”

c. Set forth specific indicators for assessing the extent to which state education systems are providing all students a sound basic education by ensuring the equitable distribution of sufficient educational resources, including, but not limited to, effective teachers, principals, and other personnel.

d. Require states to demonstrate the extent to which their current education finance system allocates available funding in an equitable manner between and within local school districts as demonstrated by the relationship between district funding and local property wealth and/or income wealth. To the extent that inequities exist, states should be required to specify the steps they will take, with the assistance of federal funding, to reduce differences in the range of per-pupil spending among school districts and among schools within the district.

e. Require states to submit transparent, comprehensible periodic reports that demonstrate through clear and consistent criteria the progress they are making toward meeting the above adequacy and equity goals.