"No Child Left Behind": Law or Slogan?

Factual Questions
1

As a parent, what does “No Child Left Behind” really mean to me, specifically? Is it US Code? A CFR Rule? A buzzword, campaign slogan, or just lip-service cliche?

If it is a law or rule, where can I find it? How does a parent use it to help a failing student being pushed along until s/he’s in over his/her head…and no one will do anything about it?

Also, does any SDoper know if it is Public Law 422 I should be looking into, as well? I am trying to help a friend’s teen - a prime drop-out candidate since our school systems care so much.

  • Jinx
2

OK, I’ve confirmed it is a Federal Law better known as the “Elementary and Secondary Education Act”. Now, what advocates are out there to assist parents in fighting for their rights? Where do the parents come into the equation?

…Short of hiring a lawyer?

  • Jinx
3

I see from your profile that you are in Baltimore. Here’s information in the form of parental handouts from the Baltimore City School System.

I don’t know how helpful learning the law may be. I did a report on No Child Left Behind last year, and what I am left with is the impression of wild impracticality.

4

For most parents and students in most schools and school districts, there will be little appreciable impact from the NCLB legistlation. What it means is that all students will be tested in the four major curriculular areas at least once in elementary and middle school. If any one of the dozen or so sub-groups of a school fail to make adequate yearly progress the school is designated a failure. If the “failure” continues into several years, the students at the school have the legal right to transfer to another school in the area. Problems with the law are many. For one thing, there is no provision for the situation most common, where all of the schools in a district are in crisis. Poor school districts with no resources have poor families with no options. Another problem with the law is how it affects teachers. There is no incentive for good teachers to go to work in failing schools and a great deal of incentive for teachers to leave them. So poor schools in poor school districts get the least capable teachers. And in my mind the egrecious flaw in the legislation is that there is NO money for it. It is a poorly thought out, badly designed, ruinously expensive and idiotic piece of legislation. At least, that’s my take on it, as a parent and a teacher.

5

There are other factors.

ALL students will be tested. Including children with Down’s Syndrome, severe brain damage, and other forms of mental retardation.

These same children are guaranteed a free public education by law.

But “No Child Left Behind” states clearly that their test scores will be brought up to an acceptable level. Precisely how this is to be accomplished is left as an exercise for individual school districts.

So, basically, if your school district houses a fair number of mentally retarded children, you are going to catch some heat. At the very least, their scores are going to drag your averages down.

It’s also worth noting that “No Child Left Behind” includes no funding whatsoever. The implication here is that our schools are “broken” and that the existing administration and infrastructure are sufficient to “fix” things, if they really wanna. Precisely what is “wrong” and what should be done about it is not made clear in the law.

To oversimplify a bit… basically, “No Child Left Behind” makes it illegal to be stupid.

6

Persistent interaction between parents and school is a good bet as a workable method.

I say this, having no idea how much the parents have tried or how skilled they are in dealing with people in a bureaucracy.

Ie, talk with teachers at PTA meetings, identify concerned teachers; talk with kid’s official counselor; discuss problem, don’t be diverted by excuses or change of subject but do hear what they say (ie they have real constraints that can sometimes be worked around, or they may have a perspective on the kid himself that the parents might do well to think about). The parents don’t want to be seen as another raging, deaf, hit-and-run set of parents. No matter how frustrated they are.

The teacher/counselor may state a constraint and no solution, or just obliquely hint about a solution, because you might need the one to develop the solution, and they aren’t in a position to be subversive.

If the parents approach from a position that the school system is being incompetent or despicable, that approach tends to prevent solutions. Work on the assumption they are competent and decent, and give them no wiggle-room to be anything else.

Now the parents know the kid’s main teachers and counseler by name, face, and personality, and they know the parents. Then if no practical progress seems imminent, you go to the principal and ditto.

Conversations can go like: Parent: problem statement; 'how do you see this? and ‘Can we double-team the kid?’, Teacher: some response, P:‘What can we start doing, this week?’, T: response, P: ‘What time shall I call at the end of the week? We can work together at least weekly all this semester.’

==========
The boss of the teachers and counseler is the principal; allies in this issue are the Parents-Teachers Association; the boss of the principal is the School Board; further allies are the media; lawyers might be useful. This is in order from first attempt to last resort.

Alternate last resort: The kid might be better off to drop out and get a job or start a business (on his own; parents not to carry him). Not a joke. He can get his GED and do college work later, when he sees a reason for it.

7

Hoo-boy. I’m an attorney whose full-time job is writing on the No Child Left Behind Act. I can’t address everything here, but there are several misconceptions.

Dead wrong. As it stands right now, a huge percentage of schools are being “identified for improvement” because they’re not making adequate yearly progress. Each year, the AYP targets get higher, so these numbers will increase. That’s a big problem with NCLB - it’s overinclusive, because a miss is as good as a mile.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Currently, the only two tested subjects are reading/language arts and mathematics. By 2007-08, science will join. Some states add more, but that’s up to each state individually and not required under NCLB. Furthermore, students are tested in the content areas each year from grades 3 through 8, and once in grades 10-12.

More correct. For AYP, it’s usually eight subgroups - five racial/ethnic, plus English learners, disabled, and economic status.

One of the big problems is that a school where one subgroup barely misses the target is treated no differently from a school where all students miss the target by a lot. But there’s nothing prohibiting states from explaining this to parents, and some states - I believe North Carolina is one - are already doing this.

And remember that there’s a reason for this “disaggregation” of data. The idea is that a school that’s doing well overall shouldn’t be able to hide that it may be seriously disserving its minorities, or ELL students, or disabled students.

But the school is not designated a “failure” - actually, it’s “identified for improvement” - until the school misses its targets for two consecutive years.

Actually, it’s after two years - when the school is “identified for improvement.” But the general idea is correct.

Sort of true. Most commonly, these schools will be offering tutoring services - which normally are required only after three years of not making AYP - a year early. An early draft of the statute would have explicitly required districts to accept students from other districts where schools were identified for improvement - but there were serious legal problems with that so it was dropped. ED would still like districts to at least try to persuade neighboring districts to take their kids in. In some states with “open enrollment” laws, this is actually a very viable alternative.

Wrong. That’s part of what Title II is for - for states and districts to set up incentive programs to pay teachers more for teaching in poor schools. Of course, getting unions to accept pay differentials is a major problem in some areas. Plus, state and district report cards must disclose the percentage of unqualified teachers teaching in low-income areas versus non-low-income areas.

Wrong again. Allocations for Title I, Part A, which is the part of NCLB that includes all of the requirements just discussed, have increased enormously in real terms over the last three years. It may still not be enough, but to describe increases from $8.7 billion in FY2001 to $13.3 billion in FY2004 (that’s in the President’s budget, non-final) - that’s a 53% increase over four years, folks - as “NO money” is ludicrously dishonest. The problem is that the states, largely through their own profligacy during the boom years, are finding themselves in serious budget constraints and are looking to the federal government to bail them out. But that’s never been what Title I, Part A (and its predecessors) was about - it was about providing extra money for the most needy students.

Now, there’s complaining that NCLB isn’t “fully funded.” But that’s not honest, either. Every time Congress approves a discretionary funding program, it slaps an “authorized allocation” figure on it. Those numbers are basically a ceiling on what Congress can spend for that program. They’re PR: a way that Congress can be seen as promising huge numbers without actually having to deliver them, because these “authorized” numbers aren’t actually binding on the budget. (And I don’t think constitutionally they can be binding on future Congresses, so it’s all unenforceable hokum.) It’s like saying, “I authorize myself to buy a Jaguar,” when your actual income is $50,000 a year. You can “authorize” it to your heart’s content, but can you actually spend it?

Congress does this with virtually every discretionary spending program. It’s a charade. And the interest groups protesting this charade were fully aware of it when the law was passed.

It’s a lot less than ideal, I agree. But it’s not impossible, and the goals are laudable.

Now, Wang-ka. I dealt with your “no funding” comment above, which leaves one large point:

This is actually not really the case. It’s still in regulatory limbo, but ED has come up with a proposed rule that will allow states to create separate assessments for students with “the most severe cognitive disabilities.” So that will cover most of the students you’re describing. You’re correct that most students with disabilities are required to take the same assessments as non-disabled kids - but that’s because most SWDs aren’t cognitively disabled. They may have dyslexia, or motor disabilities, or be deaf. Previously, few of these students were tested, even though there wasn’t much reason why they couldn’t be – other than the sad reality that many weren’t getting quality educations, and schools knew it.

Lastly, MaryEFoo, what are you addressing? None if it seems to relate to NCLB, other than in the most attenuated fashion.

8

You’re gonna hate this, but the reason the student is getting pushed along is due to NCLB and related legislation. At many schools, the teachers aren’t allowed to fail a student without parental permission. However, the fact that you do care is a big help. Talk to the teacher, not to the lawyers. Most teachers will be more than happy to work with a parent to try to help the student. Heck, most teachers will be overjoyed just to see that you give a damn in the first place.

9

My apologies to MaryEFoo, who was actually addressing the OP while I went off on policy! NCLB only indirectly addresses the question of “social promotion,” by requiring all students to be assessed at the appropriate grade level - those who arguably shouldn’t be promoted won’t pass the assessments, so districts are supposed to have an incentive to give those students more attention. But the law doesn’t actually take a position on whether holding kids back is a good idea or not.

NCLB may have the unintended consequence of encouraging some districts and schools to play games with their graduation rates - as in Houston. Here in New York, kids thought not capable of graduating have been forced into GED programs, which meant they weren’t part of the regular school system but also didn’t count as dropouts. A nice win-win for the bureaucrats, but a loser for the students.

10

I’m not sure what the $8.7 billion and $13.3 billion figures mean. Are they the money to implement the NCLB act? What’s the money going towards? Designing & adminstering the tests? Vouchers for students/parents who want to leave failing schools? Attracting teachers to schools in need of improvement? Helping schools that need improvement implement some improvements? Rewarding schools that are successful? Also, how have total federal expenditures on education changed in the past few years? Is NCLB spending replacing other government spending on education, or supplementing it, or what?

11

Good questions.

Test administration is, I believe, covered under the figures I named - but there’s a possibility that there was a special allocation for that purpose, too.

NCLB does not cover “vouchers.” What Title I, Part A covers, within very complex limits, is the cost of transporting students enrolled in public schools identified for improvement, to public schools that aren’t so identified. This is referred to as “public school choice.” Title I, Part A also covers the cost of “supplemental educational services,” meaning tutoring/Sylvan/etc., for low-income students in schools identified for improvement.

Title I, Part A can also support teacher improvement programs, such as bonuses, training, etc. Title II is also available, but the dollars are lower. Similarly, school improvement is yet another component of Title I, Part A. It’s also covered, but again in smaller amounts, in Titles IV & V.

Total K-12 dollars have increased enormously, but especially because of special education - the Individuals with Disabilities with Education Act. But even separating out IDEA, since the late 1980s the real dollars have increased substantially. In fairness, what I haven’t seen is a chart comparing growth to school-age population increases, but my best guesstimate is that even by those measures the increases would still be quite a bit greater than inflation plus population growth.

NCLB was a complete, 670-page rewrite of basically all K-12 federal education programs outside of IDEA. The prior version was called the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, and in various versions it dates back to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. See, every few years the whole thing gets reauthorized and amended, and NCLB was the most radical such reauthorization thus far. So NCLB doesn’t supplant other federal K-12 spending - it simply is the federal K-12 spending. The 53% increase I cited is the amount spent on the largest K-12 program - Title I, Part A, which is designed for “Improving the Education of the Disadvantaged,” and accounts for roughly 75% of total K-12 funding. Overall, federal K-12 spending has expanded by a similar degree. Whole programs, such as the $1 billion “Reading First” program, were created out of whole cloth under NCLB. A few penny-ante programs were cut - but they’re overwhelmed in spectacular fashion by the new spending.