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Education standards: Neighboring school district ponders leaving 'No Child Left Behind' program

Casa Grande elementary school district to lose $2.5M if it opts out of federal education program

By SUSAN RANDALL
Staff Writer

Published: Saturday, October 8, 2011 3:09 PM MST

Can the federal “No Child Left Behind” education law be fixed? The Casa Grande Elementary School District Governing Board thinks so.

But if Congress is unable or unwilling to make changes to the law with escalating test requirements, some board members are ready to consider opting out of the federal program, even though it would mean the loss of $2.5 million a year in federal funds.

The Governing Board met in a study session Tuesday to discuss the position paper it plans to send to U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar; Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain; Rep. John Kline, chair of the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee; and Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The Governing Board asked Congress to reframe the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to more carefully target the “federal investment in K-12 education to those schools serving larger concentrations of low-income and minority children” and make its accountability systems “fair, clear, accurate, easily understood and reflective of the relatively small contribution of the federal government to local school districts.”

In the first draft of the paper, the board asked Congress to:

• Make NCLB’s rules and regulations the same for all states. Right now, “adequate yearly progress” is defined differently in every state, which invites inaccurate comparisons. In addition, most charter schools are not held to the same standards because a subgroup must have 40 children in a grade to count, and most charter schools are small.

• Give states and districts more control over strategies to improve student achievement and stop requiring schools to spend state and local funds on federal mandates.

• Limit the jurisdiction of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to federal programs, like NCLB, and prohibit their extension to other programs as a condition of receiving funds.

“The federal government should supplement and support, not dictate the policies and responsibilities of local school districts.”

• Revise and reauthorize the act — or grant schools relief from their mandated punishments.

“Our schools are achieving significant success with a substantial majority of students, yet the approach in No Child Left Behind causes schools that are progressing to be labeled as failures. The focus should be shifted from emphasizing punishment to building capacity and rewarding success.”

• Help increase the supply of “highly qualified” teachers, one of the requirements of the act, which states, “There is clear evidence that the supply of such professionals is insufficient to meet the needs of school districts throughout the U.S.”

The situation is especially problematic in Arizona, superintendent Frank Davidson told the board. The Arizona Department of Education requires fully certified special-education teachers to achieve “highly qualified” status before they can teach basic content.

“Given these requirements,” he said, “a teaching candidate who has completed all necessary coursework or passed the appropriate test, yet has poor communication and interpersonal skills, is “highly qualified,” while a teaching candidate who is one credit short of the required 24, yet has exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, would not be “highly qualified.”

It means districts must assign substitute teachers with no special-education training to vacant teaching positions when it could have assigned certified special-education teachers, but they lacked a specific subject endorsement. Private schools do not have the same requirement.

Board member Roxy Achen asked if the Obama administration’s waivers would affect anything in the position paper.

Davidson said he supports the notion of state waivers, but they will not eliminate the 50 different accountability systems. Nor will they lessen federal control. The federal government’s role in education needs to be more in scale with its contributions, which are about 5 percent of the cost.

Achen asked what would happen if CGESD opted out of the federal programs.

Davidson said it would lose federal Title I funds, to help districts with a large number of low-income families, and Title II funds, to improve teacher quality. The total would amount to about $2.5 million.

CGESD also receives roughly $1.5 million in special-education funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which would not be affected, because it is not part of NCLB.

Achen asked if all the paperwork and evaluations were worth $2.5 million.

Davidson said he has asked himself the same question, but he is not aware of any district that has opted out of NCLB.

Board member Jim Klein Jr. asked if there have been any benefits to NCLB.

“Absolutely,” Davidson said, especially for the nation’s neediest children, who were historically underserved.

By holding schools accountable for all the subgroups (race/ethnicity, low-income, special-ed and English learners), it forced schools to focus on those students.

NCLB’s philosophy that all children should succeed was correct, he added, “but as is the case with all public policy, the devil is in the details.”

Davidson said he would put together another draft based on Tuesday’s discussion, and send it to the board members for comments and changes. They can discuss it again as a board at the Oct. 11 meeting.

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