[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1252 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







106th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1252

       To provide parents, taxpayers, and educators with useful, 
                  understandable school report cards.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             June 21, 1999

  Mr. Dorgan (for himself, Mr. Bingaman, and Mr. Byrd) introduced the 
 following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on 
                 Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
       To provide parents, taxpayers, and educators with useful, 
                  understandable school report cards.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Standardized School Report Card 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) According to the report ``Quality Counts 99'', by 
        Education Week, 36 States require the publishing of annual 
        report cards on individual schools, but the content of the 
        report cards varies widely.
            (2) The content of most of the report cards described in 
        paragraph (1) does not provide parents with the information the 
        parents need to measure how their school or State is doing 
        compared with other schools and States.
            (3) Ninety percent of taxpayers believe that published 
        information about individual schools would motivate educators 
        to work harder to improve the schools' performance.
            (4) More than 60 percent of parents and 70 percent of 
        taxpayers have not seen an individual report card for their 
        area school.
            (5) Dissemination of understandable information about 
        schools can be an important tool for parents and taxpayers to 
        measure the quality of the schools and to hold the schools 
        accountable for improving performance.

SEC. 3. PURPOSE.

    The purpose of this Act is to provide parents, taxpayers, and 
educators with useful, understandable school report cards.

SEC. 4. REPORT CARDS.

    (a) State Report Cards.--Each State educational agency receiving 
assistance under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 
shall produce and widely disseminate an annual report card for parents, 
the general public, teachers and the Secretary of Education, in easily 
understandable language, with respect to elementary and secondary 
education in the State. The report card shall contain information 
regarding--
            (1) student performance in language arts and mathematics, 
        plus any other subject areas in which the State requires 
        assessments, including comparisons with students from different 
        school districts within the State, and, to the extent possible, 
        comparisons with students throughout the Nation;
            (2) attendance and graduation rates;
            (3) professional qualifications of teachers in the State, 
        the number of teachers teaching out of field, and the number of 
        teachers with emergency certification;
            (4) average class size in the State;
            (5) school safety, including the safety of school 
        facilities, incidents of school violence and drug and alcohol 
        abuse, and the number of instances in which a student was 
        determined to have brought a firearm to school under the State 
        law described in the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994;
            (6) to the extent practicable, parental involvement, as 
        measured by the extent of parental participation in school 
        parental involvement policies described in section 1118(b) of 
        the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965;
            (7) the annual school dropout rate, as calculated by 
        procedures conforming with the National Center for Education 
        Statistics Common Core of Data;
            (8) student access to technology, including the number of 
        computers for educational purposes, the number of computers per 
        classroom, and the number of computers connected to the 
        Internet; and
            (9) other indicators of school performance and quality.
    (b) School Report Cards.--Each school receiving assistance under 
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, or the local 
educational agency serving that school, shall produce and widely 
disseminate an annual report card for parents, the general public, 
teachers and the State educational agency, in easily understandable 
language, with respect to elementary or secondary education, as 
appropriate, in the school. The report card shall contain information 
regarding--
            (1) student performance in the school in language arts and 
        mathematics, plus any other subject areas in which the State 
        requires assessments, including comparisons with other students 
        within the school district, in the State, and, to the extent 
        possible, in the Nation;
            (2) attendance and graduation rates;
            (3) professional qualifications of the school's teachers, 
        the number of teachers teaching out of field, and the number of 
        teachers with emergency certification;
            (4) average class size in the school;
            (5) school safety, including the safety of the school 
        facility, incidents of school violence and drug and alcohol 
        abuse, and the number of instances in which a student was 
        determined to have brought a firearm to school under the State 
        law described in the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994;
            (6) parental involvement, as measured by the extent of 
        parental participation in school parental involvement policies 
        described in section 1118(b) of the Elementary and Secondary 
        Education Act of 1965;
            (7) the annual school dropout rate, as calculated by 
        procedures conforming with the National Center for Education 
        Statistics Common Core of Data;
            (8) student access to technology, including the number of 
        computers for educational purposes, the number of computers per 
        classroom, and the number of computers connected to the 
        Internet; and
            (9) other indicators of school performance and quality.
    (c) Model School Report Cards.--The Secretary of Education shall 
use funds made available to the Office of Educational Research and 
Improvement to develop a model school report card for dissemination, 
upon request, to a school, local educational agency, or State 
educational agency.
    (d) Disaggregation of Data.--Each State educational agency or 
school producing an annual report card under this section shall 
disaggregate the student performance data reported under section 
4(a)(1) or 4(b)(1), as appropriate, in the same manner as results are 
disaggregated under section 1111(b)(3)(I) of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act of 1965.
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