SC PIE - Feature Article

According to a September 2003 survey, a combined 76 percent of those polled knew little or nothing about the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. One wonders what people think of it now that almost two more years have passed and much has been written from people on both sides of this vital education issue.

In seeking to better understand this law, I located a definition to share with you. Wikipedia defines the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 as a law attempting “to improve the performance of America's primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts, and schools, as well as providing parents more flexibility in choosing which schools their children will attend. ... The law requires states to create an accountability system of assessments, graduation rates, and other indicators. Schools have to make adequate yearly progress (AYP), as determined by the state, by raising the achievement levels of subgroups of students ... to a state-determined level of proficiency. All students must be proficient by the 2013-2014 school year. An escalating set of assistance is provided to students who are in schools that repeatedly do not improve.”

The U.S. Department of Education states that “the purpose of [No Child Left Behind] is to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.”

So, if every state is allowed to create its own education benchmarks and standards, what could possibly be wrong with the law?

If you will allow me to couch the major arguments in a different scenario, I think I might be able to help you better understand what is happening with this issue. Let’s suppose that a large business has contracts with numerous small businesses to provide ongoing service to new and existing customers through its many locations, a different small business for each location. The large business decides after polling its customers in a variety of ways that it needs more accountability from and a better grade of service performed by each small business. Each small business is allowed to design its own improved service package but it must get the large business’ approval of the package before implementation. The large business provides an option for each small business:
• either we’ll pay you more money to upgrade and document the improved service you do and we’ll keep polling our customers to make sure you do it to our standards,
• or you decline both the money and the improved service, at which point we may transfer your accounts to another business.

Suppose further that after the small businesses receive the money in order to help them implement their own approved, upgraded service package, it becomes apparent that they are not accomplishing their goal. What should they do? What would you think if some of the small businesses turned around -- whether individually or using a larger organization’s muscle -- and sued the large business?

Now, take that scenario and consider that the large business is the US Department of Education; the small businesses are the individual state departments of education and the districts and schools within them; the customers are the students in the public schools; the polling represents the various forms of testing; the upgraded service is compliance with the No Child Left Behind Law; increased pay comes from more federal money; and the muscleman-type organization that sued the government is the National Education Association.

Here are some highlights of the battle between the two sides:
In August 2003, Education Week reported that the National Education Association (NEA) was planning to file a lawsuit “on behalf of states, districts, and teachers, targeting so-called unfunded mandates in the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act of 2001.”

Education Week reported in January 2004 that the 16,700-student Reading, Pennsylvania school district was “suing the state for failing to provide the money and the tools it needs to ensure its schools will make academic progress under federal law.” The district is the state’s fifth-largest but it also has a “predominantly Hispanic population.” When 13 of its schools didn’t make NCLB’s required “adequate yearly progress,” the lawsuit claimed “the state department of education failed to give them enough money or translate state tests into Spanish.”

In February 2004, Education Week reported that the 15-member Utah State House education committee unanimously passed a bill “that would take the state out of the No Child Left Behind Act.” The state’s associate superintendent for student achievement and school success wanted to “set flexible goals for each school rather than meeting the same fixed goals for every one.”

That same month, Education Week reported on an Ohio Department of Education study “estimating that the state will spend … more than twice as much as it now gets from the federal government under Mr. Bush's K-12 initiative—to meet the administrative costs and achievement goals of the No Child Left Behind Act.”

But Bush administration officials and some school finance experts say that “the Ohio report and other estimates like it overlook a pertinent fact: States themselves had committed to raising student achievement—-the costliest task under the federal law-—even before President Bush signed the measure two years ago.” The Bush administration points out that “annual federal funding for K-12 education has increased more than 40 percent since President Bush took office.” Spending on the biggest program under NCLB (Title I) rose by $4.4 billion from fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2004.

Legislatures from North Dakota, Utah and Vermont considered joining Ohio and Virginia in “speaking out against what state officials call the No Child Left Behind Act's unfunded mandates—a term meaning the law requires states to do things that the federal government doesn't pay for.”

However, on June 9, 2004, Education Week published an article about the General Accounting Office’s (GAO’s) report that the No Child Left Behind law is not an unfunded mandate. Then-U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige was quoted as saying, "The chorus of the ‘unfunded mandate’ has now been exposed for exactly what it is—a red herring. If states do not want federal support, they are not required to take the funds. It’s that simple." A spokeswoman for the department said that increased federal funding to implement the law is enough to cover the expenses of complying with the NCLB act.

The NEA -- the nation’s largest teachers’ union -- filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Education on April 20, 2005, challenging the federal No Child Left Behind Act on behalf of a number of school districts in different states. According to Education Week, “The NEA suit charges that the sweeping federal education law is illegal because it forces states to use their own money to carry out its mandates—contrary to a provision in the federal education law.” But the arguments about inadequate funding have been repeatedly countered by federal education officials, saying that “historic” levels of money have been budgeted to “ensure that the law’s goals are met.” Furthermore, states could theoretically forgo federal education aid if they want to be “free of the mandates.”

On June 30, 2005, Education Week reported that the US Department of Justice issued a formal reply, arguing that Congress “conditioned federal aid to states and districts upon their meeting the law’s obligations, which could entail spending their own money.” States and districts wanting to avoid the burden of NCLB requirements may instead decline federal funding or advocate for more of it, but they should not be able to “force the federal government to keep paying them money when they do not fulfill the statutory conditions.

In court papers filed June 29, 2005, Education Week reported, the Bush administration asked a US District Court judge in Detroit to dismiss the suit. The lawsuit attempts to create “an inadequate-funding excuse” for failing to meet No Child Left Behind Act requirements, a step that would “thwart the law’s primary purpose, which is to hold states and school districts that accept federal funds accountable for achieving improved educational results,” the administration says.

If this scenario had occurred between privately-owned businesses, the judge would probably laugh it out of court. But this scenario is being played out on the national education stage between government bodies that are supposed to be working together for the benefit of our nation’s children. Numerous articles I read indicated that states don’t want to give up increased federal funding. It should be apparent, however, that increased funding will continue only as long as a state measures up to its own approved standards. To do anything less is to evade accountability.