[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8940-H8941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PROBLEMS WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MATHESON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to an 
issue of utmost importance to my home State of Utah and to the rest of 
this country.
  As we are now in the beginning of a new school year, I am very 
troubled by news from across our State about the implementation of the 
No Child Left Behind Act. The concepts and ideas behind this Federal 
education reform legislation remain just as good as they were 2 years 
ago when, with bipartisan support, Congress enacted the bill at the 
urging of President Bush. Despite the bill's good intentions, such as 
improving student achievement, increasing teacher quality, and 
providing parents with greater options, the legislation implementation 
has strayed off course.
  How bad is it? Under the strictest interpretation of standards, 78 
out of the 83 schools in Utah's Jordan School District will be 
designated as failing schools. In rural Utah it is questionable whether 
any junior high or high school will be able to meet all of the 
criteria. This just does not make sense. I have met with teachers, 
principals, parents, school board members, and superintendents 
throughout my State, and I know first hand about the good work that is 
done every day in our schools. Utah's schools face challenges based on 
large class sizes and low State funding. Now, due to the imposition of 
a new series of underfunded Federal requirements, they face the 
possibility of being labeled as ``failures.''
  There are two basic problems with the implementation of the No Child 
Left Behind Act. First, the act promised significant Federal funding to 
assist local schools in meeting new requirements. In fact, a strong 
commitment to fund the No Child Left Behind Act requirements was 
critical in garnering overwhelming bipartisan support for the 
legislation. Unfortunately, when it came time to provide the actual 
funding, Congress fell short by $9 billion. At a time when State 
budgets are already tight, Federal requirements to push schools to do 
more with less set up our schools to fail.
  Second, as with any complex law enacted by Congress, the Federal 
agency responsible for administration develops

[[Page H8941]]

specific regulations. And in this case of No Child Left Behind, the 
U.S. Department of Education has developed a set of regulations based 
on an extreme interpretation of the legislation. There are many 
problems with the way No Child Left Behind regulations have evolved, 
but let us just take a look at two examples.
  Acknowledging that quality teaching is critical to student 
performance, No Child Left Behind calls for teachers to meet competency 
and training standards for subjects they teach. This sounds reasonable, 
but any new Utah secondary teacher is required to have a bachelor's 
degree in the subject that he or she teaches. In rural schools, 
teachers often must teach multiple subjects.

                              {time}  1515

  In the case of foreign language teachers, many Utah teachers are 
former LDS missionaries with foreign language fluency. Even if these 
teachers have college minors in the language, they would still not be 
considered qualified to teach the subject. Special education teachers 
also teach a variety of subjects every day. Is it reasonable to require 
multiple college degrees? Clearly, greater flexibility is necessary to 
pursue teacher quality.
  Now, the No Child Left Behind Act also recognized that teacher 
turnover is a problem, and it directs States to ensure that poor and 
minority children are not taught by inexperienced teachers at higher 
rates than other students. Again, this sounds reasonable, but the 
implementation has proven problematic.
  In Utah, anyone with less than 3 years of teaching is considered an 
inexperienced teacher. The Jordan School District has a low percentage 
of inexperienced teachers across the whole district, and Midvale 
Elementary School in that district, they just recently aggressively 
recruited a dozen new teachers with foreign language skills to meet 
students' needs. But because they are all new teachers, it drives the 
school's percentage of inexperienced teachers above the district 
average, so the school is a failure under this requirement. Again, this 
just does not make sense.
  As a Congressman, I often hear about the unintended consequences of 
legislation. As someone who supported the No Child Left Behind Act, I 
am gravely concerned that a lack of funding and an inappropriate set of 
regulations have brought on many unintended consequences that will harm 
Utah's schools.
  The gap between legislative intent and real world implementation must 
be addressed. That is why I have cosponsored legislation to suspend No 
Child Left Behind requirements until Congress fulfills its funding 
commitments.
  I have seen the great work that goes on every day in our schools. Our 
teachers, our principals, the PTA parents, teacher aides and school 
district staff work hard for our kids. None of them would ever want to 
leave any child behind. They know that the best investment we can make 
is the investment in our children's education. Congress should do 
everything we can to help them succeed.

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