[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 82 (Tuesday, May 24, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3095-S3096]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record a copy of my opening statement last week to the HELP
Committee regarding oversight of the Every Student Succeeds Act.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Oversight of The Every Student Succeeds Act
Mr. ALEXANDER. I'm delighted to have the witnesses here.
This is an extraordinary group of individuals with broad
prospective of children and elementary and secondary
education. And we welcome your comments on how to implement
the new reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act.
This is our third of six hearings to discuss the
implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which the
President signed in December.
It's the second opportunity for this committee to hear from
the states, school districts, teachers, principals, and
others that helped us pass this overwhelmingly bipartisan law
and are today working together to implement it in a way that
is consistent with congressional intent.
I want to focus my remarks on the administration's proposed
``Supplement Not Supplant'' regulation.
This is the very first opportunity the administration has
to write regulations on our new law. And in my view, they
earned an `F.'
The reason for that is that the regulation violates the law
as implemented since 1970, and seeks to do it in a way that
is specifically prohibited in the new law.
In writing the new law last year, Congress debated and
ultimately chose to leave unchanged a provision in the law
referred to as ``comparability.'' That's section 1605.
This provision says: school districts have to provide at
least comparable services with state and local funding to
Title I schools and non-Title I schools.
But--the law plainly states that school districts shall not
include teacher pay when they measure spending for purposes
of comparability. That's been the law since 1970. We didn't
change it last year.
There's an entirely separate provision, known as
``Supplement Not Supplant'' that's intended to keep local
school districts from using federal Title I dollars as a
replacement for state and local dollars in low-income
schools.
What the department's proposed ``Supplement Not Supplant''
regulation attempts to do is to change ``comparability'' by
writing a new regulation governing ``Supplement Not
Supplant.''
In other words, their proposal would force school districts
to include teacher salaries in how they measure state and
local spending, and would require that state and local
spending in each Title I school be at least equal to the
average spent in non-Title I schools.
The effect of this would be to violate the law as
implemented since 1970, section 1605.
So, the administration may get an ``A'' for cleverness, but
an ``F'' for following the law, in my opinion.
The negotiated rulemaking committee couldn't agree on the
proposal. At least one member, Tony Evers, a witness today,
said that ``Congressional intent isn't necessarily being
followed here.''
Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service
said the same thing.
CRS issued a report that said quote, ``the Department's
interpretation appears to go beyond what would be required
under a plain language reading of the statute.''
CRS found that the proposed [supplement, not supplant
regulations ``appear to directly conflict'' with statutory
language that ``seems to place clear limits on [the
Department's] authority'' and ``thus raises significant
doubts about [the Department's] legal basis for proposed
regulations.''
Today, I am looking forward to hearing from witnesses
whether what I have been hearing from principals, teachers,
and education leaders across the country is true. Here's what
I've been hearing:
1. That the department's proposed regulation could turn
upside down the funding formulas of almost all the state and
local school systems across the country.
Most states and local districts allocate K-12 finding to
schools based on staffing ratios.
This often results in different amounts going to different
schools in the same district because teacher salaries vary
from school-to-school for reasons having nothing to do with a
school's participation in Title I.
Instead, salaries vary because of teacher experience, merit
pay, or the subject or grade level they teach.
2. I've been hearing that proposed regulation could
effectively require wholesale transfers of teachers and the
breaking of collective bargaining agreements.
3. I've been hearing that school districts won't receive
enough funds to comply with the proposed regulation.
4. That students could be forced to change schools.
5. That the proposed regulation could increase the
segregation of low-income and high-income students.
6. That it could require states and local school districts
to move back to the burdensome practice of detailing every
individual cost on which they spend money to provide a basic
education program to all students, which is exactly what we
were trying to free states and districts from, when we passed
the law.
According to the Council of Great City Schools, the
proposed regulation would cost $3.9 billion a year, just for
their 69 urban school systems to eliminate the differences in
spending between schools.
What the department has done for the first time is to try
to put together two major provisions of the law that have
always been separate.
On comparability, (which is the first one):
Members of this committee discussed and debated changing
this provision at great length over the past 6 years. We
discussed it at great length over the last six years.
Senator Bennet of Colorado has lots of experience with
this, had one proposal. I had another.
We ultimately decided not to make any changes in
comparability.
Instead, we included more transparency, in the form of
public reporting, on the amount districts are spending on
each student, including teacher salaries, so that parents and
teachers know how much money is being spent and can make
their own decisions about what to do, rather than the federal
government mandating it be used in comparability
calculations.
Then on the second provision in the law, on ``Supplement
Not Supplant'':
We addressed this provision and made changes with an effort
to simplify the law, and not make it more complicated.
By no stretch of the imagination did we intend, does any of
the language in the law say, that ``Supplement Not Supplant''
would be used to modify the ``comparability'' provision.
In fact, we specifically prohibited that. We prohibited
expressly:
The Secretary from requiring local school districts to
identify individual costs or services as supplemental
We Prohibited the Secretary from prescribing any specific
methodology that local school districts use to distribute
state and local funds
Most importantly, we prohibited the Secretary from
requiring a state, local school district, or school to
equalize spending.
The proposed regulation is nothing less than a brazen
effort to deliberately ignore a law that passed the Senate 85
to 12, passed the House 359-64, and was signed by the
president.
No one has to guess what the law says. As the Congressional
Research Service says--we can just read its plain language.
And if the administration can't follow language on this, it
raises grave questions about what we might expect from future
regulations.
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