June 17, 2011
NCLB Reauthorization, Waivers, and the Third Variable Problem
By Charles Barone, DFER Director of Federal Policy
Most of the inside-the-beltway chatter this week was around Secretary Arne Duncan's announcement on Monday, via Politico, that if A.: Congress did not act soon to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, he would B.: proceed to "develop a plan that trades regulatory flexibility for reform." I can't confirm this, but the rumor is that the plan arrived at OMB last night, and will be finalized in August. At any rate, it doesn't seem like they're playing games on this one. All signs suggest that they plan to follow through.
We ran down our concerns when we got a whiff of this back in December (here). Long story short, we don't like the process and see serious pitfalls ahead on the substance. We recommend you also take a look at takes this week by reform veterans like Margaret Spellings (the first two Vinnie Barbarino paragraphs alone tell you most of what you need to know), Andy Rotherham, and Jeanne Allen.
I know that the current Secretary sincerely thinks states and school districts need relief. And I would agree that in some instances, some flexibility that allows states to revise their current plans makes sense. But the lack of action on the Hill is not why a waiver process is so urgent per se. In fact, both the turbulence around reauthorization and, now, the waiver process, stem from an underlying third variable: the temporary lapse in strong leadership on the part of those who know, can do, and have done, better.
Like it or hate it, and I mostly like it, on NCLB George Bush and three key heavyweight allies in Congress (Ted Kennedy, John Boehner, and George Miller) knew a few key things they wanted at the beginning of that process in January of 2001: disaggregation of data, state and local accountability for closing achievement gaps, annual testing, and better targeting of resources to the neediest schools. And by the end of the year, they got them.
Left-of-center columnist E.J. Dionne wrote yesterday that this week he was feeling nostalgic for former President George W. Bush. His comments were in the context of the Republican Presidential debate Monday night but they fit just as well here:
"Bush acknowledged that the federal government can ease injustices and get useful things done."
Likewise, on Race to the Top, at the beginning of their terms in 2009 President Obama and Secretary Duncan knew and made clear what they wanted states to do: repeal state laws that barred the use of student data in teacher evaluations, develop better teacher evaluation systems, lift arbitrary state caps that barred the expansion of high-quality public charter schools, and leverage fundamental reforms in schools that perform persistently poorly. By this time last year, they had gotten those things from more states than most naysayers hoped or thought was possible."Say what you will about his No Child Left Behind education-reform program. It accepted, correctly, that the federal government has to play an important part in reforming our public schools and held them accountable to a set of standards....The reform now needs to be reformed, of course, but it was a serious initiative."
Right now we don't have that kind of bright-line clarity from either the White House or either party on Capitol Hill as to what they want to do on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Both Congress and the Administration say they want to get rid of the requirement that 100% of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Fine. Give credit for student growth short of that lofty goal, especially when states are holding students to newer, higher standards. Continue to push states to narrow achievement gaps and require that they track the progress of each school toward that goal. Just don't give them a 2-year vacation from all those things like USDOE gave Virginia.
My read of the law, which I helped write, is that it doesn't require 100% by 2014 anyway. Not even close. More on that Monday.
Instead of trying to push back on the 100% by 2014 madness, both Congress and the Administration largely have been consigning it. I feel for them. The decibel level from the usual suspects inside the Beltway is enough to rattle anyone's nerves, especially those new to the game.
This is why many of us were astounded when the Administration inexplicably took active steps to up the drama level a few notches when it asserted in March that if NCLB were not reauthorized, 82% of schools nationwide this year would be labeled by the law as a failure because they would not make their NCLB Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals. Every credible advocate in DC has stated that - at best - that statistic is unlikely. The slightly bolder said that it inaccurately conveyed the real effect of the law on schools. Most everybody who has studied it for more than a minute will tell you off the record that it's complete fiction.
The Center for Education Policy issued a report a month later in April (which everyone, and you would have to assume that includes USDOE, knew was coming), which said:
To anyone who believes that the percentage of schools not making AYP will go from bouncing around between 30% and 40% over 4 years to more than double that amount in the span of one year, I have a bridge I want to sell you in Jersey."As discussed in more detail in [our] five-year trend report, the national percentage of public schools failing to make AYP rose from 29% in 2006 to an estimated 38% in 2010 and actually decreased in two of the interim years. Although 38% is a record high percentage of schools not making AYP, it is still lower than what many observers had predicted by this point in NCLB implementation." [emphases added]
Moreover, when 40-60% of students who graduate high school need remediation in college, when more than half of U.S. fourth graders according to a study released by USDOE this very week don't know why Abe Lincoln was an important figure, the "38% of schools in need of improvement" figure sounds at the very least reasonable and if anything on the low side.
I went to a briefing by a top White House economic advisor earlier this week, who conveyed that what they are seeking in budget negotiations with Democrats and Republicans is to face real and hard facts and have them drive their negotiations toward a credible consensus, rather than let those same real and hard facts be hijacked and demagogued by those with other goals. Whether we are looking over the next few months at a real legislative effort or, much less desirably, a series of administrative actions,Congressional leaders and the Obama Administration will have to reverse course and make a conscious and brave decision to face facts and call b.s. when they see it if that kind of spirit is to drive the education policy process.