[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 137 (Thursday, September 15, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5641-S5646]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REFORM OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, in the world in which we live, every
American's job is on the line. As every American knows, better schools
mean better jobs. Schools and jobs are alike in this sense: Washington
cannot create good jobs and Washington cannot create better schools,
but Washington can create an environment in which others can create
good jobs and environments in which teachers and principals and
students and communities can create better schools, along with their
parents.
A good place for Washington to start is with the five pieces of
legislation we introduced today to fix the law known as No Child Left
Behind. No Child Left Behind was a bipartisan effort in 2001 and 2002.
President Bush and Democratic Members of the Senate and the House and
Republicans as well agreed on it. By the 2013-14 school year, the law
said that all 50 million students in nearly 100,000 public schools
would be proficient in reading and math. There would be State
standards, tests to measure performance against those standards, and
requirements that the more than 3,000 teachers in America be highly
qualified. There would be school report cards, disaggregated by
subgroups of students, and schools that failed to make what was called
adequate yearly progress would receive Federal sanctions. There would
also be more choices of schools and charter schools for parents.
During the last 9 years, Federal funding for elementary and secondary
education programs has increased by 73 percent, while student
achievement has stayed relatively flat. Our legislative proposals would
set a new, realistic, but challenging goal to help all students succeed
and to end the Federal mandates which have Washington, DC deciding
which students and teachers are succeeding and failing.
Our legislation would require States to have high standards that
promote college and career readiness for all students and would
continue the reporting of student progress so parents, teachers, and
communities can know whether students are succeeding. It would
encourage teacher and principal evaluation systems, relating especially
to student achievement, and would replace the Federal definition of a
highly qualified teacher. It would consolidate Federal programs and
make it easier to transfer funds within local school districts. It
would expand charter schools and give parents more choices. For the
bottom 5 percent of schools, the Federal Government would help States
turn them around. Much has happened during the last 10 years, and it is
time to transfer back to States and to local governments the
responsibility for deciding whether schools and teachers are succeeding
or failing.
Since 2002, 44 States have adopted common core academic standards.
Two groups of States are developing common tests to see whether the
students are meeting those standards, and more than 30 States are
working together to develop common principles for holding schools and
districts accountable for student achievement. Thanks to No Child Left
Behind, we now have several years of school-by-school information about
student progress that puts the spotlight on success and puts the
spotlight on where work needs to be done.
In addition, many States and school districts are finding ways to
reward outstanding teaching and school leadership and to include
student performance as a part of that evaluation. As common sense as
that idea may seem, it was not until Tennessee created the Master
Teacher Program in 1984 that one State paid one teacher one penny more
for teaching well. All the sponsors of the five pieces of legislation
we introduced today are Republicans. Many of the ideas were either
first advanced or have been worked out in concert with President Obama
and with his excellent Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, as well as
with Democratic Senators here and with Republican and Democratic
colleagues in the House. In other words, we have made a lot of
progress.
In the Senate, my judgment is that we are not far from agreement on a
bipartisan bill, with most of the differences of opinion centering
around what I would characterize as provisions that would create a
national school board. We on the Republican side want to continue to
work with our colleagues across the aisle and in the House. Our purpose
in offering our ideas is to spur progress so we can enact a bill before
the end of the year. The House of Representatives has passed its first
bill to fix No Child Left Behind with bipartisan support. It would
expand charter schools and is similar to the charter school bill
Senator Kirk will introduce today. The President has met with us and
given us his blueprint. The Secretary has warned us that, under
existing law, most schools will be labeled as failing within a few
years, and he is proposing to use his waiver authority to avoid that.
The Secretary clearly has that waiver authority under the law, and I
support his use of it in appropriate ways.
I am introducing legislation today to make it clear that the
appropriate use means using the waiver to accept or reject State
proposals based upon whether those proposals enhance student
achievement and not to impose a new set of Washington mandates. But the
best way for us to relieve the Secretary of the need to consider
waivers and to help American children learn what they need to know is
for us to work together in the Senate and in the House to fix No Child
Left Behind.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
following my remarks, and following the remarks of all the Senators,
the following documents: Why we need to fix No Child Left Behind; how
the environment has changed in the past 10 years; a summary of the nine
proposals Secretary Duncan, Senator Harkin, Senator Enzi, and others of
us have worked on; a summary of the legislation introduced by Senator
Isakson to fix title I; a summary of the legislation that I am
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a principal sponsor of to fix title II; a summary of Senator Burr's
proposal on titles II and IV; a summary of Senator Kirk's legislation
on charter schools; and a summary of the legislation that I am also
introducing on waivers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 2 minutes has expired.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, Senator Isakson of Georgia has a
distinguished career in education, not just as a leader in the Senate
of Georgia, but as chairman of the Georgia School Board, appointed by
Gov. Zell Miller, and as a former Member of the House of
Representatives who was a key author of No Child Left Behind when it
was enacted in 2002.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the great Senator from the State
of Tennessee for his recognition and whose own record in education is
quite distinguished, including his tenure as a university president at
the University of Tennessee, to his leadership on the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and, obviously, his service
as Secretary of Education for the United States of America.
I appreciate the reference to 10 years ago when we wrote No Child
Left Behind. There were nine of us, five Republicans and four
Democrats, who locked ourselves up in the House Education Committee
offices for about 6 weeks writing the document that became the law of
the land, and it has served the country well for 20 years.
A title I provision of that is the free and reduced lunch provision,
which is the main title of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
and it is the main title that delivers educational entitlements,
requirements, and regulations under No Child Left Behind.
The reason I am the principal sponsor of the removal--not the removal
but the reform--of title I is because No Child Left Behind requirements
under title 1 have worked and it is time to go to the next step. I wish
to be very specific about saying it has worked.
As everyone knows, adequate yearly progress, or AYP, is the goal of
title I, to see to it that every child every year is making adequate
yearly progress toward improvements in reading comprehension and
mathematics. When we started AYP, we knew when we wrote it that if the
bill worked, it would become harder and harder and harder to reach AYP
because the baseline was being built every single year.
The reason Senator Alexander talked about so many schools falling
into ``needs improvement'' is because we pushed the achievement level
so high that meeting AYP on a continuing and improving basis is
difficult. So it is time to terminate AYP as a requirement of the bill,
but it is not time to throw out the system that made it work.
Disaggregation of students, first of all, was critically important.
Public education in the United States prior to the No Child Left Behind
law exhibited school systems and schools that basically hid behind mean
average scores or an ITBS mean average score. This comparison of ITBS
test scores to other States in the Nation is an aggregation of all
students' performance and an averaging of that performance. It took the
eye off the ball and the individual student.
So what No Child Left Behind says is, test every student and
disaggregate them by sex, race, disability, by non-English-speaking,
and rate each disaggregated group by AYP. If only one school fails to
make adequate progress, then the whole school goes to ``needs
improvement.'' So we have a lot of schools labeled ``needs
improvement'' while making the best improvement they have ever made. So
it is time to end AYP, but it is not time to end disaggregation or the
test scores.
The greatest accountability measure--and all of us as politicians
know it--is transparency. This bill will require the transparency of
all the test scores of each individual child and the transparency of
each individual in each individual disaggregated group to ensure we
continue to know how our kids are doing and compare them on a year-to-
year basis. But we do away with ``needs improvement'' because it has
served its purpose.
Now, on disaggregated groups there is one other thing the title I
change does that I want to particularly emphasize on the Senate floor
today. The biggest disaggregated group in terms of causing schools or
systems to fall under ``needs improvement'' is those special needs
children considered under IDEA or the Individuals With Disabilities
Act. They are all individuals who have an individual disability that
affects their academic achievement or their ability to learn.
When we passed IDEA in 1978, if I remember correctly, through Public
Law 94-192, we dictated that we would give special emphasis and
training to those special needs kids and try and identify their special
needs and meet them within the public education system. When No Child
Left Behind disaggregated them into a single group and tested them, we
tested 98 percent of them with the same paper and pencil test. These
are kids with a plethora of disabilities that one single test could not
possibly meet. We gave a 2 percent cognitive waiver, disability waiver,
so they could have an alternative assessment for up to 2 percent of the
students, but 98 percent had to take the same test.
This reform of the IDEA portion of title I of No Child Left Behind
simply says this: Every year, at the beginning of the school year, when
the parent and the teacher and the school meet to put out the
individual education plan, the IAP for that student, the parent, the
teacher, and the school will determine what the assessment vehicle is
that best measures the assessment of that child--not a single, one-
size-fits-all, paper-and-pencil test. That is going to ensure that IDEA
students get the individual attention they deserve and the measurement
against the individual disabilities they have that is appropriate as
approved by their parents, their teacher, and their school, and it will
make a remarkable difference for IDEA kids.
I am very proud of that provision and the flexibility it gives to the
system to assess appropriately rather than force a one-size-fits-all
test against 98 percent of our children with disabilities.
So to repeat what I said at the beginning----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes has expired.
Mr. ISAKSON. It is a good time for me to repeat what I said at the
beginning. I am proud to be building on the success of No Child Left
Behind, and I am proud that Senator Alexander has taken leadership on
this committee to move forward on this reauthorization of IDEA and No
Child Left Behind.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Isakson for his
leadership in education in the State of Georgia and on this bill.
Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina has focused on elementary and
secondary education for many years, especially on making it easier for
local school districts to use the Federal dollars that are made
available and on finding ways to encourage student and teacher
evaluation. He is introducing a bill, which I am proud to cosponsor,
amending titles II and IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act.
Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from a State once owned
by North Carolina, and a distinguished Member of this August body.
What are we doing here today? We are responding to what every CEO has
said and every local leader has said and every parent has said: If you
want a future in this country, you have to fix K-12 education. We have
to make sure every child in this country has the foundational knowledge
to meet whatever challenge they are faced with in a lifetime.
Washington is good at coming up with new programs and, to be honest,
when we look back over the history of the last couple decades, every
year we come up with a new program to fix K-12. What is obvious? We
never fix it. But what we hear loudly and clearly from people who are
on the front lines--those elected and those nonelected and those who
are charged with educating our children--is give them flexibility. We
can't design one program in Washington that works in Raleigh, NC, and
works in Knoxville, TN, much less in rural North Carolina or rural
Tennessee.
What I propose is very simple: that 59 pots of money, 59 different
programs, be merged into two pots, and that
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those local school systems have the flexibility and the capability to
choose what they are going to use that money for to educate our kids.
What a novel thought, that we would take the people on the front line--
for the first time, I am suggesting that Washington give up the power
we have to say: You do it our way or you will not get the money.
We are faced in the future with some degree of austerity. We are not
going to have the money to throw it out and see what works. But that is
Washington's typical response. Now it is time to begin to focus not on
that we think works but what the teachers and the principals and the
elected officials locally, but more importantly, the community decides
works.
Senator Isakson alluded to a number of factors we use as to how we
gauge success or failure. I will tell my colleagues the gauge we ought
to have: What does a parent think? The likelihood is that by the time
we get those standard tests, it is probably too late to fix it for
their kids, but it may fix it for somebody else's.
What we are attempting to do today as we reform K-12 education
through these bills is to lay the gauntlet down and say that no child
will be exposed to an inferior education in the future because we are
going to empower--not Washington--we are going to empower the
local community.
Again, what I am simply doing in the Empowering Local Education
Decision Making Act of 2011 is to take 59 programs under elementary and
secondary education and put them into flexible foundational block
grants. Some might say the State is going to steal money off it. No. We
limit it to 1.5 percent to administer the program. It has a formula
that satisfies exactly how this money is going to be distributed so it
is done fairly.
Where we don't exercise Washington authority is we don't tell the
local school system: Here is the only way you can use it. We say to the
local school system: Here are 59 programs. You pick the ones that best
fit what your needs are in your community. In addition to that, those
two pots of money we have created are 100 percent transferable. If you
feel that one pot doesn't meet the need which might be in your area,
then you can shift all of that money over to the other pot. So if you
believe that focusing on teacher quality is better versus students, you
have the flexibility to do it without asking us for a waiver. In
addition to that, if title I is where you need additional funds, both
pots of money are transitional to title I for additional support for
at-risk kids.
That is something we have never done. Just this week I received a
letter from the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition, by the way,
of our Nation's largest central school districts. In their letter they
wrote this:
Both Title II and Title IV of the Elementary Secondary
Education Act have become unwieldy and unfocused over the
past authorizations, and are in substantial need of
rewriting. Your effort to simplify and clarify the purposes
and flexibilities within these key programs is noteworthy.
With budgetary constraints faced at all levels of
government, streamlining federal requirements, providing
predictable and consolidated formula-based funding streams to
local school districts, and ensuring local district decision
making in the use of funds under your bill is particularly
welcome.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. BURR. I urge my colleagues to read these bills. Look at your
school systems. Make a decision that is right for the future of every
child in this country and support our reauthorization efforts.
I thank the Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North
Carolina, Mr. Burr, for his insight and leadership on how we help
create an environment in which teachers, parents, principals, and
community leaders can make schools better, rather than through orders
sent from Washington telling them how to do that.
Senator Kirk from Illinois will be here in a few minutes to introduce
the charter school bill, which is the same bill that passed the House
of Representatives yesterday with 365 votes in a bipartisan way.
As I mentioned at the outset, our purpose is to get things moving. We
think there ought to be a law before the end of the year that fixes No
Child Left Behind. Toward that end, the senior member of the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Senator Enzi of
Wyoming, began to meet quietly more than a year ago with the chairman
of the committee, Senator Harkin, and with Secretary Duncan and, on
some occasions, with the President. They were able to come to a good
deal of agreement about fixing No Child Left Behind, and then, on the
nine areas we would focus on, which I put into the Record a few minutes
ago.
Senator Enzi is here now, and I thought he might want to speak about
that effort. While all of us who are introducing these bills today are
Republicans, we are only doing this as a way of moving the process
forward and are hoping to attract Democratic support so we can end up
with a bipartisan result. I believe, at the same time, that Senator
Enzi is continuing to meet with Senator Harkin, the chairman of the
committee, with the hope that we will achieve that bipartisan result.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senators who have spoken
for all of their efforts and thought. A lot of times people think that
what is being discussed on the floor is the only thing that is
happening in the Congress. There are things happening in the background
that are probably achieving more than the debates that happen here. A
lot of times what people get to see here is the blood on the floor that
results in nothing. But everyone recognizes the importance of education
and recognizes that there has been a significant effort made since 1965
with K-12 education. It has been renewed several times. In every single
instance, it has been renewed in a very bipartisan way. We want that to
continue to happen. The value of the Senate and the House is to have a
lot of different opinions on how something can be done and then to
bring those together to form something usable in whatever area we are
working on.
I cannot thank Senators Alexander, Isakson, Burr, and Kirk enough for
the work they have done in this area. It does help us to focus, and I
am working with Senator Harkin to try to come up with a bipartisan
bill. I think we have been making good progress. I have used the nine
core components of these bills that Senator Alexander mentioned as
reasons for stepping back and taking a look at what we are doing to
make sure the States can have as much of a role as possible, but the
local people have an even greater role in what is happening in
education. That is where we are trying to keep the focus, and this has
been very helpful in my discussions with Senator Harkin, to make sure
we stay on track with those things.
Senator Alexander mentioned the nine things. Secretary Duncan
traveled through most of the United States holding listening sessions
to find out what kind of problems people had. He agreed that the nine
things we had on this list were the problems with No Child Left Behind
that needed to be fixed. Senator Harkin looked at that list and agreed
in the same way.
We have come up with some solutions, and those need to be put in a
bill, and that bill needs to be passed this year. Next year we get into
Presidential elections. I cannot see where that is going to make things
more bipartisan or help education. There are a number of things that No
Child Left Behind did. One is the disaggregation, which did show some
problems across the country, where kids were being left behind. A lot
of times when we focus on education, we focus on the State and on the
school district. Once in a while we focus on the school. But what we
have been trying to do is get the focus on the kid to make sure our
children are learning what they need to know to be able to survive.
That is one of the places we will be able to greatly improve as we move
on in this effort.
One of the surprises to everybody will probably be to find out that
the Federal Government only requires one Federal test. You always hear
about all the testing the kids have to take across the Nation. A lot of
that is locally imposed, but they are tests they think are necessary.
But the Federal Government says you need to have one at the end of the
year, and that is what we have concentrated on with the disaggregation.
There have been a lot of surprises for people as they actually take a
look at
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what that rather voluminous bill has in it. I think we are moving to a
point where we should be able to get something done and get something
done relatively quickly. Again, it will be because of the work of these
people who have put together some bills to bring attention to some very
specific parts that need improvement. I thank them for doing that.
I yield the floor.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank Senator Enzi and I thank him
for his leadership and the constructive way he and Senator Harkin are
working together.
I should emphasize, as I said in my remarks, the respect all of us
have for Secretary Duncan. He has done a terrific job staying in touch
with us without regard to political party, and the President and he
have stuck their necks out on some issues that are not entirely popular
with their Democratic constituency. We respect that as well.
As I said, our effort is to take these ideas and recognize we are in
the ninth year of a bill that was supposed to be fixed after 5 years,
and to get it done before the end of the year.
One example of what we could do the Senator from Illinois will talk
about. He has been the leader on expanding opportunities for parents
and communities to use charter schools. The House of Representatives
acted on that bill yesterday.
Senator Kirk.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, joining as part of this effort, I think we
need to reform No Child Left Behind and that we should focus on making
sure we preserve disclosure and the right of parents to know how their
schools are doing, without destroying the school, without having an AYP
measurement that somehow says most, if not all, schools are failing.
As part of this effort, I am introducing the Empowering Parents
Through Quality Charter Schools Act to emphasize charter schools and to
make sure their opportunities are more widely available to parents and
children, especially in inner cities.
This is a chart I have in the Chamber that shows the top 10
nonselective--meaning they take everyone--public high schools in
Chicago. They are ranked in order of ACT scores. You can see from the
chart, Lincoln Park High School is No. 1, not a charter school. But in
the top 10, 8 of them are charter schools, and these are in some of the
toughest neighborhoods in Chicago. That is why this is one of the No. 1
issues being discussed right now in Chicago. Mayor Emanuel is doing an
outstanding job of leading a reform effort to make charter schools more
available, to expand the day of instruction, and to expand the number
of days in the school year because right now Chicagoland suffers from
some of the lowest numbers of days of instruction in the country. Right
now, for example, in Chicagoland, only about 10 percent of kids have
the opportunity to go to a charter school. I think we should set a goal
of at least 50 percent having that opportunity.
Recently, I was able to visit the Noble Street School, also another
school which was represented about 99 percent African American, with
overwhelmingly free and reduced-lunch kids. This school is
outperforming all of its peers, despite not having any selection
criteria, and being able to take kids from all walks of life, including
special-needs kids.
We are seeing something working here. Mayor Emanuel sees it. I see
it. That is why in the House of Representatives, when the companion
legislation was considered, 365 Representatives, including well over
100 Democratic representatives, supported our charter school bill. We
are introducing the companion bill over here. I am hoping for equal
amounts of bipartisan support because what we see is working in Chicago
can work elsewhere.
The charter school movement has generally focused on inner cities.
But I want to make sure charter schools are offered to kids in Peoria,
in Springfield, in Rockford, and in Metro East. So the kind of success
we are seeing here--8 out of 10 top performers being charter schools
for nonselective public high schools--is something I think we should
have offered here. That is why I applaud our ranking member and
especially Senator Alexander for putting together this group of bills
to offer higher education performance for America's kids, especially in
the tough global political environment they will be in.
With that, I yield back to our leader on this joint effort and the
ranking minority member and thank them for the opportunity to speak.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fifteen seconds.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. President. Every American knows that
every American's job is on the line. Every American knows that better
schools mean better jobs. We are ready to work with the President and
with our Democratic colleagues to create an environment for better
schools in this country by fixing No Child Left Behind.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
Elementary and Secondary Education: How Has the Environment Changed
Over the Past 10 Years?
1. Standards: All states have content standards in place
for reading/language arts and mathematics. 44 States are
working together in a Common Core state-led effort to improve
their standards.
2. Assessments: All states are conducting annual
assessments in reading/language arts and mathematics that are
aligned to state standards and are publicly reporting their
results. Two groups of states are working together to develop
common assessments aligned to the Common Core standards.
3. Data: Disaggregation of data by states and districts
provides greater information on how schools and students are
performing by race, income, English proficiency and
disability. This makes it easier to identify the achievement
gaps and target efforts to address problems.
4. Auditing: All states are participating in the National
Assessment of Educational Progress, NAEP/Nation's Report
Card, which serves as an audit of the quality of state
standards and assessments.
5. Robust Awareness: Because of data, parents, teachers,
principals, legislators, and Governors are paying more
attention to education issues, and thus holding their
districts, schools, and teachers accountable.
6. Charter School Growth: The number of students enrolled
in public charter schools has more than tripled to 1.4
million and the percentage of all public schools that were
charter schools has increased from 2% to 5%, comprising 4,700
schools nationwide.
7. School Choice: Not much, but some growth in school
choice (i.e. Milwaukee, Florida).
What the Nation Has Learned From No Child Left Behind: The Good and the
Bad
The Good
Disaggregated Reporting: The disaggregation of data by
subgroups has allowed us to see how all students are
performing.
Annual Assessments: Provides basic information on the
performance of students in mathematics, English/Language
Arts, and Science.
Public Reporting: Increased public reporting of state,
district, and school performance has provided the public with
better information on the quality of local schools.
Parental Involvement: Provides greater information to
improve parental involvement in school-level decisions.
The Bad
Goal of 100% Proficiency by 2014: Sets unrealistic and
unproductive mandate that all students are proficient by
2014.
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): Rigid federal mandates of
how to achieve proficiency and tells states from Washington
which schools are succeeding and which are failing.
Highly-Qualified Teachers (HQT): Onerous federal definition
of what constitutes a qualified teacher.
Unfunded Mandates: Federal mandates far exceed the 9-10%
federal investment in education.
Ineffective spending: Dedicates billions in limited federal
dollars to small and ineffective programs that don't have a
record of success.
Why We Need To Fix No Child Left Behind
100% proficiency by 2014 will not happen.
Adequate Yearly Progress with its prescriptive 64-part
formula will result in every school getting a failing grade.
Teachers focus too much on testing and no one understands
what the results mean.
Sanctions impact rural schools more.
Highly Qualified Teacher requirements create unusual
restrictions particularly with respect to rural, special
education, and English as a second language teachers.
State and local flexibility is limited and there are
duplicative and overlapping programs.
Allowable uses of federal funds are too limited and
restrictive.
One size fits all mentality of Washington's ``good'' ideas.
We need local solutions.
Parents are too often left out of the equation.
How To Fix ``No Child Left Behind''
1. Set a new, realistic but challenging goal to help all
students succeed.
2. Free 95% of schools (91,000 schools) from the federal
requirement of conforming to a
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federally-defined adequate yearly progress mandate.
3. The federal government will help states fix the bottom
5% of their schools (4,500 schools).
4. Require states to have high standards that promote
college and career readiness for all students.
5. Encourage the creation of state and school district
teacher and principal evaluation systems to replace federal
highly qualified teacher requirements.
6. Continue necessary reporting so that parents, teachers,
schools, legislators, and communities receive good
information on schools.
7. Provide school districts with the ability to transfer
funds more efficiently among the five largest federal
education programs.
8. Consolidate and streamline more than 80 programs within
NCLB and eliminate those that are duplicative and
unnecessary.
9. Empower parents.
How To Fix ``No Child Left Behind''
1. Set a new, realistic but challenging goal to help all
students succeed. Establish a national goal that all students
will be `college and career ready' by high school graduation.
States will use annual reading and mathematics assessments,
including student growth, to measure progress toward the
goal.
2. Free 95% of schools (91,000 schools) from the federal
requirement of conforming to a federally-defined adequate
yearly progress mandate. 95% of schools will no longer face
federal sanctions. These schools will continue annual reading
and mathematics assessments and public reporting
requirements. The emphasis will be on helping states to catch
these successful schools and struggling schools doing things
right, instead of announcing their failure.
3. The federal government will help states fix the bottom
5% of their schools (4,500 schools). States will identify,
for federal accountability purposes, the bottom 5% of schools
that receive Title I funding. These schools will be required
to choose an intervention model from a defined list of
options. The models will be broad and include options for
rural schools and provide flexibility for state innovation.
4. Require states to have high standards that promote
college and career readiness for all students. Require states
to adopt `college and career ready' standards that are
aligned with higher education, career and technical education
standards, and workforce skills within the state. There will
be no preference or prohibition for states to adopt a
specific set of standards, including the Common Core
standards.
5. Encourage the creation of state and school district
teacher and principal evaluation systems to replace federal
highly qualified teacher requirements. Encourage states and
school districts to develop teacher and principal evaluation
systems to identify high performing teachers and principals
and eliminate the federal ``highly qualified teacher''
definition. Innovative teacher and principal pay programs
will continue to be supported through the Teacher Incentive
Fund program.
6. Continue necessary reporting so that parents, teachers,
schools, legislators, and communities receive good
information on schools. States, school districts and schools
will continue to report information regarding student
achievement on annual reading, mathematics and science
assessments. Other reported information will include high
school graduation rates and teacher certification. All of
this information will continue to be disaggregated by race
and ethnicity, socio-economic status, disability status,
English proficiency, gender, and migrant status to maintain
public accountability for all student subgroups. Unnecessary
and irrelevant federal reporting requirements will be
eliminated.
7. Provide school districts with the ability to transfer
funds more efficiently among the five largest federal
education programs. School districts will have more
flexibility to meet their local needs by transferring funds
among the 5 major federal education programs. This will allow
school districts to better target federal resources to
improve student academic achievement.
8. Consolidate and streamline almost 60 programs within
NCLB to allow State and local leaders to meet student needs
in their states and districts. Consolidate the programs
authorized in NCLB into flexible funding streams that allow
States and local school districts to fund locally-determined
programs that meet the unique and specific needs of the
students in their States and districts.
9. Empower parents. Parents will receive meaningful
information on the performance of their children's schools so
they can be more effectively involved in their children's
education. The law will continue to support the expansion of
high-quality charter schools. For those parents whose
children attend the state-identified bottom 5% of schools,
they will have the option of public school choice to transfer
to another public school.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments Act of 2011
Empowering State and local education leaders to improve public schools
Establishes College & Career Readiness Goal: States are
asked to develop and maintain academic content standards and
assessments that will prepare students for college- and
career-readiness without interference by the Federal
government about whether to work alone or in partnership with
other states.
Empowers State and local leaders to develop their own
accountability systems: Instead of a ``One Size Fits All''
Washington-approach, states will develop their own systems
designed to ensure that all students graduate from high
school college- and career-ready, without Federal
interference or regulations on state standards, assessments,
growth models for accountability, or how to develop teacher
and principal evaluation systems that are based on improving
student achievement.
Eliminates Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): The Federal
government is taken out of the business of determining if
local schools and districts are succeeding or failing in
educating their students by ending the Washington-based AYP
system of how to identify schools.
Asks States to Identify the Bottom 5% of Lowest Performing
Schools: States will be required to identify the bottom 5% of
Title I receiving elementary and secondary schools, using
their state-developed accountability system, and local school
districts will be required to implement a school improvement
strategy for their lowest performing schools. School
districts will continue to be required to provide public
school choice to students in these lowest performing schools.
Eliminates ``Highly Qualified Teacher'' Requirement: States
will be freed from the onerous ``Highly Qualified Teacher''
requirements and empowered to maintain and improve their own
teacher and principal licensure and certification
requirements.
Maintains Public Reporting Requirements: States and local
school districts will continue to report disaggregated data
on student achievement, while requiring annual report cards
at the school, school district and State level.
Reduces Paperwork & Federal Intrusion: The bill
dramatically simplifies the Title I State plans that are
submitted to the Secretary to reduce unnecessary paperwork
and frees states from Washington interference.
The Teacher and Principal Improvement Act of 2011
Preparing, training, and recruiting effective teachers and principals
to improve student achievement
Addressing State and local needs for teacher and principal
training: States and local school districts will conduct a
needs assessment to determine what professional development
teachers and principals need to improve student achievement
and then target resources to meet those needs.
Supports the State-led Development of Teacher/Principal
Evaluation Systems: States and local school districts are
empowered to develop their own teacher and principal
evaluation systems that are based significantly on student
academic achievement. The Federal Government would be
prohibited from regulating or controlling those state and
local evaluation systems, allowing local innovation and
leadership to flourish.
Maintains Strong Reporting Requirements: States and local
school districts will provide important data on the quality
and effectiveness of teachers and principals, as well as the
results of teacher and principal evaluation systems if
developed, to inform parents and the community about who is
teaching in the classroom and leading our schools.
Teacher Incentive Fund: Authorizes the Teacher Incentive
Fund to provide competitive grants for states, districts, and
partnerships with private-sector organizations to implement,
improve, or expand comprehensive performance-based
compensation systems for teachers and principals, while
leaving broad latitude in how states develop such systems, as
well as prioritizing high-need schools.
Encourages Innovative Private-Sector Involvement:
Authorizes competitive grants for national non-profit
organizations, such as Teach for America and New Leaders for
New Schools, to help states and local school districts that
have a demonstrated record with teacher or principal
preparation, professional development activities, and
programs.
Reduces Paperwork and Federal Intrusion: The bill
dramatically simplifies the Title II State plans that are
submitted to the Secretary to reduce unnecessary paperwork
and frees states from Washington interference.
Empowering Local Educational Decision Making Act of 2011
State and local school districts, not Washington, D.C., are
the best makers of educational decisions. Unfortunately, in
the last few decades, the federal government, believing it
knew best, has exploded the number of small, categorical
education programs in K-12. Almost every year, yet another
new program has been created in pursuit of the newest
educational rave. And with each of these new programs, States
and local school districts have lost flexible federal funding
sources that allow them and not the latest fad to determine
how best to allocate federal resources to meet the unique and
specific needs of the individual students in their States and
districts.
The Empowering Local Educational Decision Making Act of
2011 streamlines 59 programs into 2 flexible foundational
block grants. Rather than Washington and the federal
government determining funding priorities for States and
local school districts, the Empowering Local Educational
Decision Making Act puts locals in charge by allowing them
the flexibility to fund locally-determined programs and
initiatives that meet
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the varied and unique needs of individual States and
localities.
Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning
Consolidates 34 programs into ONE flexible, formula-driven
Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning to fund
locally-determined needs and initiatives related to--
Increasing the capacity of local school districts, schools,
teachers, and principals to provide a well-rounded and
complete education for all students.
Increasing the number of teachers and principals who are
effective in increasing student academic achievement.
Ensuring that low-income students are served by effective
teachers and principals and have access to a high-quality
instructional program in the core academic subjects.
Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant
Consolidates 25 programs into ONE flexible, formula-driven
Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant to fund locally-
determined needs and initiatives for improving students'
safety, health, and well-being during and after the school
day by--
Increasing the capacity of local school districts, schools,
and local communities to create safe, healthy, supportive,
and drug-free environments.
Carrying out programs designed to improve school safety and
promote students' physical and mental health well-being,
healthy eating and nutrition, and physical fitness.
Preventing and reducing substance abuse, school violence,
and bullying.
Strengthening parent and community engagement to ensure a
healthy, safe, and supportive school environment.
Enhanced Flexibility through Funding Transferability
To provide additional funding flexibility to State and
local school districts, under the Empowering Local
Educational Decision Making Act of 2011 districts will be
able to transfer up to 100% of their allocations under the
Fund for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning and the
Safe and Healthy Students Block Grant between the two
programs or into Title I, Part A.
Empowering Parents Through Quality Charter Schools Act 2011
Senator Kirk Charter School Bill
This bill will modernize the charter school program by
encouraging the expansion of high-quality charter schools and
allowing charter school management organizations to receive
assistance directly from the federal government.
Modernizes the Charter School Program to address present
realities for public school choice, by incentivizing
expansion and replication of successful charter models,
providing support for authorizers, and enhanced opportunities
for facilities financing.
Encourages states to support the development and expansion
of charter schools.
Streamlines federal Charter School Program funding to
reduce administrative burdens and improves funding
opportunities for the replication of successful charter
models and facilities assistance.
Allows proven, high-quality charter school management
organizations to apply directly to the federal government, as
well as local education agencies, deleting a layer of
bureaucracy with the State government.
Facilitates the establishment of high-quality charter
schools and further encourage choice, innovation and
excellence in education.
Supports an evaluation of schools' impact on students,
families, and communities, while also encouraging sharing
best practices between charters and traditional public
schools.
The State Innovation Pilot Act of 2011
The bill clarifies waiver authority that is currently in
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The clarified
waiver provision authorizes State educational agencies and
local school districts to submit a request to the Secretary
of Education to waive any statutory or regulatory requirement
of the law.
State and local leadership: The bill improves the waiver
authority currently in law by clarifying that the waiver
process is intended to be led by state and local requests,
not Washington mandates.
Deference to state and local judgment: If the Secretary
chooses not to immediately approve a waiver request, the bill
directs the Secretary to develop a peer review process that
defers to state and local judgment on waiver requests.
Transparency: The bill ensures that the peer review process
will be open and transparent so that it is clear what states
and local school districts are asking to waive and what peer
reviewers think about those waivers.
Prohibiting additional regulations: The bill prohibits the
Secretary from imposing by regulation any additional
requirements to waiver requests not authorized by Congress.
The bill encourages State and local education leadership in
developing and implementing innovative strategies in:
College and career ready academic content and achievement
standards for all public elementary and secondary school
students;
High-quality academic assessments that are aligned with and
are designed to measure the performance of local educational
agencies and schools in meeting those standards;
Accountability systems that are based on those college and
career ready standards, as well as other academic indicators
related to student achievement; and
Programs to improve principal and teacher quality and
effectiveness.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I wish to speak briefly on the subject of
our relations with Pakistan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered.
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