No Child Left Behind

Ed Week’s David Hoff draws attention to a provision in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that could complicate school districts’ efforts to spend $10 billion in Title I funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Under NCLB, school districts must provide students with supplemental tutoring or give them the option of transferring to a better-performing public school if they are enrolled in schools that have failed to meet student achievement benchmarks for multiple years. Districts must set aside up to 20 percent of Title I funds for these purposes.

But in practice, many school districts with low-performing schools haven’t actually spent the full 20 percent set-aside on school choice or tutoring (also known as supplemental educational services, or SES). That's in part because of a lack of better-performing schools for students to transfer to, and in part because many districts have done a lousy job of making parents aware of their options under the law. Districts that don’t spend the full set-aside may use that money for other purposes, but they must wait until the following year to do so. With the new infusion of Title I funding, the amount of set-aside money districts are unable to spend is likely to grow. And some observers fear that a delay in spending these funds could undermine their stimulative impact.

Complicating the picture are regulations put in place near the end of the Bush administration that would make it more difficult for school districts to roll over unused set-aside funds and use them for other purposes. Lobbyists for school districts and school administrators are citing the stimulus as a reason that the Obama Administration should undo those regulations and expand waiver authority for districts to use the set-aside funds for things other than public school choice and SES. Education reformers and advocates for low-income children fear that such changes might make it harder for children stuck in poorly performing schools to get the educational supports they need and could reward school districts for bad behavior.

We have a better idea: Maintain the requirement that districts set aside 20 percent of Title I funds for public school choice and SES, but allow them to use that funding for pre-K as well. Don’t allow districts to roll over unspent set-aside funds, but if they can’t or don’t spend the full set aside on choice and SES, require them to use the remaining funds to provide high-quality pre-K for children in neighborhoods. Services could be provided through school-based programs, Head Start, or community-based providers who meet high quality standards (such as employing teachers with bachelor's degrees).

Yesterday, the House of Representatives and the Senate Appropriations Committees released the text of the 2009 Omnibus bill.  This bill dictates appropriations for fiscal year 2009, which started on October 1^st, 2008.  In the majority of cases, the 2009 Omnibus increased program funding from the 2008 level.  The total Department of Education appropriation is $66.5 billion, up from $62.1 billion in fiscal year 2008.

Typically, the annual appropriations process begins after Congress adopts a budget resolution, usually by late spring. Congress adopted a budget resolution for fiscal year 2009 in May 2008.  Although the Appropriations Committees in both the House and Senate took up the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations bills in June, neither chamber adopted a bill. Eventually, majorities in both Houses opted to postpone consideration of all 2009 appropriations, except Homeland Security, until after the elections. (For a timeline of events surrounding 2009 appropriations, please see here.)   

Here at Ed Money Watch and the Federal Education Budget Project (FEBP) we are always working to better understand the distribution of federal education dollars to schools and districts.  The Department of Education recently released a report that seeks to do just that for six federal education programs: Title I, Title II, Title III, Reading First, Perkins Vocational Education Grants, and Comprehensive School Reform (CSR).[1]

In general, the report gives a frank assessment of the degree to which federal programs effectively or ineffectively distribute funds to the schools and districts that most need them - those with large low-income populations.  The most interesting findings pertain to Title I, the largest source of K-12 federal funding created to provide low-income, high need students with supplementary academic services. 

We've previously written about both presidential candidates' unwillingness to talk about No Child Left Behind (NCLB).  That's changed a bit - especially since the Teacher's College debate between Obama spokesperson Linda Darling-Hammond and McCain advisor Lisa Graham Keegan brought it back into the public eye.  Regardless, it's impossible to deny that whoever wins the election will have to tackle NCLB head-on.  It's not going to be an easy battle.

Reauthorizing NCLB will likely be a long process that demands the next President's leadership and guidance.  The list of topics that is likely to make or break the reauthorization process is extensive and overwhelming.  But in honor of this Election Day, we have selected a few that are near and dear to our hearts for the future President-elect to look forward to.

Today on the Diane Rehm Show, Obama spokesperson Melody Barnes mentioned that if elected, Barack Obama would like to consider portfolios as a form of NCLB assessment.  This news is both surprising and timely - yesterday the Forum for Education and Democracy held an event focusing on the benefits of performance based assessments (PBAs) in a standards-based and accountability-focused world.

Like portfolios, performance based assessments ask students to demonstrate their learning through open ended prompts, projects, presentations, and papers rather than in the multiple choice format commonly found in today's K-12 accountability system.  A few states and localities like Rhode Island and the New York Performance Standards Consortium have implemented such systems with some success.

For most of the law's existence, politicians have been debating whether No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is underfunded.  School districts, states, and stakeholders have sued the federal government for enforcing an "underfunded mandate" that requires them to meet proficiency and attendance levels without providing what they believe are necessary funds to do so.  For several years the fight has gone on with seemingly no hope for conclusion. But three researchers have finally shed some light on the cost of NCLB goals.

Duncombe, Lukemeyer, and Yinger recently published a study in a book titled Improving on No Child Left Behind: Getting Education Reform Back on Track, that estimates the cost of bringing students in four states to various levels of proficiency.  To say that the results invoke sticker shock is an understatement.

The states in question are California, New York, Missouri and Kansas.  While California and New York are highly urbanized, Missouri and Kansas are primarily rural.  New York and Kansas have demonstrated relatively high student achievement while California and Missouri have demonstrated relatively low achievement.

It's hard to underestimate the impact of the financial crisis on education.  States across the country are struggling to keep their education budgets afloat.  Districts have lost millions of dollars in failed investments.  Schools are considering cutting staff, programs, and services to make ends meet.  School construction projects are being put on hold and in some cases may be abandoned.

But the problems don't end there - as states and localities pare down their education budgets, the amount of money they are able to allocate to federal programs that require matching funds is also sure to drop.  Because eligibility for many federally funded programs relies on matching funds, a state or locality's inability to provide those funds may mean the end of particular programming.

In light of the Vice Presidential debate tonight we put together a short primer on where both of the VP picks stand on education.  Needless to say, this is not an exhaustive or official list of either candidate's stance.  Rather, we have attempted to trace both of their activities on education before they were potential VPs to paint a fuller picture.

Senator Joe Biden, the Democratic VP nominee, has a history of support for higher education legislation including expanding the college tuition tax deduction, the lifetime learning credit and the HOPE credits.  He has co-sponsored bills related to Public Service Academies, education funding equity, expansion of school-age childcare, and school safety.  He also co-sponsored the Educational Excellence for All Act in 2003 which aimed to increase the funding authorization for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

With No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reauthorization on the horizon, it never hurts to look into the future of American public education.  Thankfully, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released its Projections of Education Statistics to 2017.  This report provides some valuable information when considering reasonable future expenditures on education.

According to NCES, total public school enrollment is expected to increase 10 percent between 2005 and 2017.  This growth is expected to occur primarily in the South and West, particularly in Arizona, Nevada and Texas.  The Pre-K through eighth grades can expect the greatest enrollment growth, 12 percent, while the high school grades are only expected to grow by 4 percent.

The report predicts that the number of public high school graduates will increase 8 percent between 2005 and 2017.  While Nevada, Arizona and Utah will see particularly large increases in the number of high school graduates, Louisiana, Vermont, and North Dakota will see particularly large decreases.  These numbers highlight the states that are expected to particularly excell or fail at graduating students from high school.

Districts across the nation are in need of highly qualified teachers, particularly in math, science and special education.  Given that the estimated cost of current teacher attrition is around $2 billion annually, maintaining and growing the teaching force may be one of the greatest, and most expensive, challenges in education for the next administration.  Sadly, little research has been done to examine the value added of current or potential teacher retention and recruitment activities.

Currently, the federal government makes some efforts to increase the pool of qualified teachers, with special emphasis on hard-to-staff schools.  Title II of NCLB currently allocates $2.9 billion in state grants for teacher recruitment and retention activities such as incentive programs for teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools or teach hard-to-staff subjects.  The TEACH grant program, part of the College Cost Reduction Act, provides up to $24,000 in tuition grants to college students in exchange for four years of teaching service in hard-to-staff schools and subjects with an expected total cost of $325 million over five years.  The Higher Education Opportunity Act "spends" an unspecified amount to support innovative teacher training programs and accountability for teacher preparation schools as well as $300 million on partnerships between schools of education and high-need districts.