Its looks like the much maligned title of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive education law “No Child Left Behind” might soon be gone, and along with it many of that law’s most controversial components. Last week, the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee voted 15-7 to pass NCLB’s replacement bill, named the Elementary and Secondary Education Amendments Act out of Committee and to the floor.
Committee Fireworks
Agreement did not come easily, however, most notably because of disagreement from the junior Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul. Senator Paul filed the most amendments of anyone to the bill – 74, and two hours into the first day of debate, he shut down the proceeding invoking a technical Senate rule. Debate continued the next day, and by mid morning, Senator Paul reached an agreement with the Committee’s leadership to allow the Committee to move forward. Basically, he withdrew all but 7 of his Amendments and the Committee agreed to hold a hearing on ESEA before the bill went to the floor.
Overview
So what is in the new bill? Well, it eliminates Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and thus also eliminates the need for states to meet certain ever increasing yearly performance targets, also known as Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO’s). Instead, every state must demonstrate its schools are making “continuous improvement.” The definition of continuous improvement is left up to the state. States will still have to administer assessments to students in grades 3-8 and once between grades 10-12. States will also still have to disaggregate the data by subgroup, one of which must be students with disabilities.
While 95% of schools will no longer be under federal scrutiny or subject to federal consequences, the bottom 5% of schools will continue to face sanctions. Namely, parents will retain the right to move their students from these schools and place them in better performing ones, and low performing schools will have to adopt an improvement model –one of which the state may design and implement, if the Secretary of Education approves it.
Testing and HQT
CEC and its members worked with many coalition partners throughout the last year, but especially in the last 2 weeks, to shape the bill and ensure it appropriately addressed the needs of children and youth with disabilities, those with gifts and talents and the professionals who serve them. You can read CEC's thoughts on the bill here. Two main issues of debate included testing of students with disabilities and highly qualified provisions for special education teachers.
As for testing, Senator Isakson introduced an amendment, which CEC along with several other groups including the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE), and the National School Board Association (NSBA) opposed. This amendment would have allowed states to offer alternate and modified assessments to any number of students with disabilities. While CEC recognizes and calls for assessments that are appropriate for students with disabilities and allow them to demonstrate what they know, states have had difficulty designing systems for modified assessments and have done so at great cost. Indeed, only 3 of these tests have been approved by the U.S. Department of Education, despite millions of dollars spent. Moreover, the Committee’s bill already allowed states to administer an alternate assessment aligned to alternate content and achievement standards for any student with significant cognitive disabilities.
This is in line with current practice throughout the nation. All but a few states are participating in the Race to the Top Assessment consortia, which are designing new assessments that include formative and summative features, computer adaptive elements and are based on the common core standards – now adopted by 34 states. These assessments will be available in the 2014 school year.
Highly Qualified Teachers
There was also much debate about the de-emphasis of NCLB’s definition of Highly Qualified Teachers (HQT). CEC supported two amendments sponsored by Senator Sanders (I-VT) which would have added provisions ensuring that any teacher who entered the profession through an alternative route to certification program must be supervised by an experienced teacher and offered support until fully certified. These amendments failed however, and thus current NCLB HQT provisions remain. Unfortunately, these requirements failed. HQT remains but is lessened somewhat by a definition which provides greater latitude for states. Highly Qualified requirements and how these impact special education were the subject of much debate, however, CEC will continue to monitor this and ensure the Committee is fully informed about the needs of special educators as the bill moves to the floor.
Gifted
CEC was also pleased that an amendment which --would continue support for the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, specifically continue research activities at the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) focused on the gifted and talented and administer demonstration grants through IES focusing on elementary and secondary programs for the gifted and talented – Passed! This was introduced by Senators Blumenthal (D-CT), Mikulski (D-MD) and Casey (D-PA). CEC and its partner the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) have been trying for some while to increase federal support for gifted and talented education, specifically through the introduction of the TALENT Act. While CEC was upset that this bill did not more broadly include the provisions of the TALENT Act, the preservation of the strong components of the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented program is essential for moving the ball forward on gifted and talented education in this nation and CEC will continue to seek support for this provision as the bill moves through Congress.
What happens next?
The next thing that will happen is that the Senate HELP Committee will hold a hearing on November 8, to comply with the agreement struck with Senator Paul. Then, the bill will have to move to the Floor for a full vote by the Senate. Timing will be an issue however as the Super committee is set to release its recommendations on November 23. Still, Senators Alexander and Harkin both have stated they would like to have a floor vote before the December holidays.
To read more about CEC’s thoughts on this bill – see CEC's letter on the bipartisan managers amendment here.
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