[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 130 (Thursday, September 30, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11730-S11731]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BINGAMAN:
  S. 1676. A bill to improve accountability for schools and local 
educational agencies under part A of title I of the Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act of 1965, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.


                 school improvement accountability act

 Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, last week I introduced two 
education bills related to raising standards and ensuring 
accountability for the teachers in our schools. Today, I am pleased to 
introduce three bills that relate to raising standards and ensuring 
accountability for the performance of our schools--the Small, Safe 
Schools Act, the National Dropout Prevention Act and the School 
Improvement Accountability Act. Next week, I will introduce two bills 
which relate to raising standards and ensuring accountability for 
student achievement. All of these bills, which I hope to incorporate 
into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 
form the foundation for a comprehensive plan to improve the quality of 
our public education system. The three bills that I am introducing 
today focus on improving school performance.
  The Small, Safe Schools Act would help to ensure that children have a 
sense of belonging in their school by providing incentives for the 
construction of smaller schools and providing resources to create 
smaller learning communities in existing larger schools. In this way, 
we can create school environments that keep our children safe and make 
it easier for them to meet high standards for achievement. Research 
demonstrates that small schools outperform large schools on every 
measure of school success.
  In the wake of the tragedy at Columbine High School, one of the most 
important concerns regarding school quality is school safety. Issues of 
school safety can be effectively addressed by creating smaller schools 
or smaller learning communities within larger schools. Behavorial 
problems, including truancy, classroom disruption, vandalism, 
aggressive behavior, theft, substance abuse and gang participation are 
all more common in larger schools. Teachers in small schools learn of 
disagreements between students and can resolve problems before problems 
become severe. Based on studies of high school violence, researchers 
have concluded that the first step in ending school violence must be to 
break through the impersonal atmosphere of large high schools by 
creating smaller communities of learning within larger structures, 
where teachers and students can come to know each other well.
  School size also can have a critical impact on learning. Small school 
size improves students grades and test scores. This impact is even 
greater for ethnic minority and low income students. Small 
institutional size has been found to be one of the most important 
factors in creating positive educational outcomes. Studies on school 
dropout rates show a decrease in the rates as schools get smaller. 
Students and staff at smaller schools have a stronger sense of personal 
efficacy, and students take more of the responsibility for their own 
learning, which includes more individualized and experimental learning 
relevant to the world outside of school.
  Small schools can be created cost effectively. Larger schools can be 
more expensive because their sheer size requires more administrative 
support. More importantly, additional bureaucracy translates into less 
flexibility and innovation. In addition, because small schools have 
higher graduation rates, costs per graduate are lower than costs per 
graduate in large schools.
  The Small, Safe Schools Act would establish three programs designed 
to promote and support smaller schools and smaller learning communities 
within large schools. Schools or LEAs could apply for funds to help 
develop smaller learning communities within larger schools. The bill 
also authorizes the Secretary to provide technical assistance to LEAs 
and schools seeking to create smaller learning communities. In 
addition, the bill would provide funding for construction and 
renovation of schools designed to accommodate no more than 350 students 
in an elementary school, 400 students in a middle school, and 800 
students in a high school.
  On behalf of myself and Senator Reid, I also offer the National 
Dropout Prevention Act, which is a bill designed to reduce the dropout 
rate in our nation's schools. While much progress has been made in 
encouraging more students to complete high school, the nation remains 
far from its goal of a 90 percent graduation rate for students by 2000. 
In fact, none of the states with large and diverse student populations 
have yet come close to this goal, and dropout rates approaching 50 
percent are commonplace in some of the most disadvantaged communities 
during the period from ninth grade to senior year. The bill is based on 
many of the findings of the National Hispanic Dropout Project, a group 
of nationally recognized experts assembled during 1996-97 to help find 
solutions to the high dropout rate among Hispanic and other at-risk 
students. In addition to widespread misconceptions about why so many 
students drop out of school and lack of familiarity with proven dropout 
prevention programs, one of the main factors contributing to the lack 
of progress in this area is that there is currently no concerted 
federal effort to provide or coordinate effective and proven dropout 
prevention programs for at-risk children. In fact, there is currently 
no federal agency or office that is responsible for the multitude of 
programs that include dropout prevention as a component.

[[Page S11731]]

  The Act makes lowering the dropout rate a national priority. Efforts 
to prevent students from dropping out would be coordinated on the 
nation level by an Office of Dropout Prevention and Program Completion 
in the Department of Education. The Office would disseminate best 
practices and models for effective dropout programs through a national 
clearinghouse and provide support and recognition to schools engaged in 
dropout prevention efforts. In addition, this bill provides funds to 
pay the startup and implementation costs of effective, sustainable, 
coordinated, and whole school dropout prevention programs. Funds could 
be used to implement comprehensive school-wide reforms, create 
alternative school programs or smaller learning communities. Grant 
recipients could contract with community-based organizations to assist 
in implementing necessary services.
  The School Improvement Accountability Act, the third bill I am 
introducing today, sets more rigorous standards for States and LEAs 
receiving Title I funds by strengthening the accountability provisions 
in Title I. The Title I program provides supplemental services to 
disadvantaged students and schools with high concentrations of 
disadvantaged students. These students and these schools are often 
short-changed by our educational system. The bill seeks to ensure that 
all schools are often short-changed by our educational system. The bill 
seeks to ensure that all schools receiving Title I funding achieve 
realistic goals for student achievement and that all students reach 
those goals, narrowing existing achievement gaps. Recipients will be 
required to set goals for student achievement which will result in all 
students (in Title I schools) passing state tests at a ``proficiency'' 
standard within 10 years of reauthorization. The bill also requires 
States, LEAs and schools to focus on elimination of the achievement gap 
between LEP, disabled & low-income students and other students and to 
ensure inclusion of all students in state assessments.
  The bill also modifies the corrective action section of the bill, 
which is the section that is triggered when schools identified as being 
in need of improvement, have not made sufficient gains towards the 
goals set out in the schools Title I plan. The School Improvement 
Accountability act would require schools failing to meet standards must 
take one of three actions affecting personnel and/or management of the 
schools: (1) decreasing decision-making authority at the school level; 
(2) reconstituting the school staff; or (3) eliminating the use of 
noncredentialed staff. Students in failing schools also would have a 
right to transfer to a school which is not failing.
  In order to ensure equal educational opportunities for all our 
children, we must ensure that schools are safe, welcoming places. We 
also must ensure that students in danger of dropping out of school are 
not lost, but instead graduate high school with the skills that they 
need to be productive members of our society. We must provide special 
support to students with greater obstacles to learning, such as 
disadvantaged students, students whose first language is not English, 
and disabled students. We must ensure that schools serving these 
students can provide high quality educational programs and that those 
schools are held accountable for the success of all students. The bills 
I offer today will do much to achieve these goals. I hope that my 
colleagues will support these efforts.
                                 ______