February 19, 2008: Letter to the United States Senate

February 19, 2008

Member
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Re:  Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)/No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act during the 110th Congress

Dear Senator:

The National School Boards Association (NSBA), representing over 95,000 local school board members across the nation, urges you to aggressively support the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)/No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act this year before the 110th Congress adjourns.

As you are aware, Senator Edward Kennedy, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has indicated his strong commitment to complete the reauthorization this year before Congress adjourns. We encourage your strong support in achieving this goal. In fact, nearly 20 members of the United States Senate have already introduced or co-sponsored legislation with provisions consistent with the recommendations of local school boards.

Local school boards across the nation believe that it is imperative that the reauthorization is completed before the 110th Congress adjourns. Failure to reauthorize ESEA/NCLB during this 110th Congress will be devastating to our public schools, and has the potential for adversely impacting public opinion regarding local public schools across the country.

Under current NCLB law there is an ever-rising AYP bar that will unnecessarily and unfairly identify more and more of the schools in your state as “failing” and consequently ensnare more and more of those schools in an annual progression of poorly conceived sanctions. If Congress can fix NCLB now, Congress would be in a much better position to further advance effective education reforms next year rather than focus on ever-worsening problems that – by that time – could be nearly a decade old. Therefore, we encourage you to not let the momentum that we have built up around the current needs slip away.

While the commitment of many members of Congress to reauthorize ESEA/NCLB this year is very encouraging and continues to increase, some members have raised concerns regarding: 1) the current inadequate federal funding; and 2) the anticipated actions by Secretary Spellings. In response to those concerns, we offer the following comments:

1.  Inadequate Federal Funding. Local school boards continue to seek an increased federal investment in public education, particularly for Title I and special education programs. However, equally important is the need to address many of the unintended consequences of various provisions of the law involving assessments, how we measure student and school progress and sanctions – that have resulted in several key barriers to full implementation of the law.

In the absence of such deliberations on policy changes, local school districts will be left short-changed not only with inadequate federal funding, but also by inadequate and dysfunctional policies that are hurting the education of school children. There is no reason to delay fixing operational problems, particularly since local school boards have already developed specific recommendations to address these concerns.

More specifically, our recommendations have been fully incorporated into the No Child Left Behind Improvements Act of 2007, H.R. 648. Therefore, the lack of adequate resources while important should not delay urgently needed policy revisions that can only be addressed through the legislative reauthorization process. We urge you to review the provisions in H.R. 648, and to sponsor companion bills in the Senate that would ensure that the provisions in H.R. 648 are incorporated into the final Senate reauthorization bill.

2.  Rule Changes by the Secretary of Education. In recent weeks, Secretary Spellings has announced that she will meet with state officials across the country to identify changes that need to be made pending full reauthorization. While local school boards across the nation would appreciate any regulatory changes that would eliminate the current implementation barriers, many of the changes sought by local school boards are not within Secretary Spellings’ authority. Further, in revising regulations within her authority, such changes have not always been in the direction desired by local school board members who daily face the challenges of the currently flawed system.

Therefore, we urge you to support full reauthorization this year as the only viable alternative to ensure that states and local school districts would no longer be subject to a “one-size-fits-all” approach that fails to recognize the unique needs of individual students or schools – and that fails to provide adequate flexibility to states and local school districts.

Questions regarding our positions, as well as our formal recommendations, should be directed to Reginald M. Felton, director of federal relations at 703-838-6782, or by e-mail, rfelton@nsba.org.

Sincerely,

Michael A. Resnick
Associate Executive Director