[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

[[Page S5642]]

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

[[Page S5643]]

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

[[Page S5646]]

     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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