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By Leo Coco, TCTA's Washington lobbyist
Time runs out for reauthorization of NCLB in 2007 and may prove difficult in upcoming year
President Bush sent to Congress early in his first administration his top domestic legislative priority, which was to build upon his education reform agenda while governor of Texas. It was greeted positively by both Republican and Democratic education leaders in Congress. This signature legislation was called the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and it reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 with dramatic and far-reaching changes. The legislation proposed to become the engine that would drive the standards-based reform movement and to expand the federal influence over education by holding states, school districts and individual schools accountable for the education of their students.
This year the five-year-old law is to expire, and efforts to reauthorize it have been under way since Democrats took control of the Congress in January 2007. At the helm of the Senate committee with NCLB jurisdiction is Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who collaborated with his close Republican colleague Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) and President Bush on the initial passage of the law. While there was a falling out later between Sen. Kennedy and the President over inadequate funding, they teamed up again this year and pledged to work toward making needed changes to the law while maintaining its integrity and intent.
President Bush is pushing hard for reauthorization because NCLB has become his significant domestic accomplishment. Sen. Kennedy agreed to make strong efforts to complete work on the bill this year but just recently announced that as Congress races to adjourn this session in mid-December, there is not enough time to get the bill done. Chairman George Miller (D-CA), his counterpart in the U.S. House of Representatives, agreed there will not be a bill going to the floor of the House before the end of the year. This means a temporary extension of current law will go into effect this year to allow Congress time to complete its work in 2008.
Progress made, but obstacles ahead
But while time and the calendar are being blamed for the failure to reauthorize the law this year, there are no assurances that additional time in 2008 will provide success. Key provisions in current law that need to be fixed and controversial new proposals have been blockades. The presidential election process will further complicate things next year, and observers shouldn’t underestimate the political realities of giving the President in his last year of office the extension of a law that he desperately wants and needs.
There has been substantial progress on NCLB in Congress this year. Both the House and Senate committees held extensive hearings and comment periods on proposed changes (TCTA submitted comments that can be accessed online at tcta.org). Just after Labor Day, the House made public a complete draft reauthorization bill signed off by Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Buck McKeon (R-CA), but did not introduce the bill officially. In early October, the Senate followed suit with selected proposals for each Title of the bill but did not address all provisions of current law.
There have been first-line efforts and resources expended by the White House to get it done this year. First Lady Laura Bush has been actively involved in the effort to make sure Congressional Republicans stand with the President. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has been the most noteworthy champion of NCLB and has put the full army of resources at her department behind reauthorization of a bill that does not weaken standards of accountability.
Changes will be made to NCLB
There has been strong opposition to the law from both ends of the political spectrum, from those supporting claims of expanded federal control, promoting teaching for the tests, and reduction of time for non-tested subjects. This year one Republican opponent in the House of Representatives went so far as to introduce a bill that would allow states to opt out of NCLB without losing their federal funding. Sixty-five Republicans signed on to his bill, including the Republican Whip.
Yet most policymakers believe that NCLB has moved education strategies in the right direction. And there have been editorials throughout the country urging Congress to stay the course. There is broad agreement that some of the current law’s provisions need correcting, and there are signs in the discussion drafts from Congress that changes will be made, even some controversial ones. Some of the issues receiving strong attention include: different accountability measures for those schools whose students narrowly missed yearly progress standards compared to those schools that are failing overwhelmingly; allowing states to use other measures of student performance, including graduation and student retention rates and scores in other core curriculum subjects; performance pay for teachers; removal of the ability of teachers to use the High Objective Uniform State System of Evaluation (HOUSSE) provisions to meet highly qualified requirements; and allowing states with heavy immigrant populations to allow those students not fluent in English to take tests initially in their native language.
Presidential election politics
The second session of this Congress next year will provide roughly nine months to continue the work that has begun. The big complication will be presidential election year politics. Among the Democrats, three of the candidates are current members of the Senate committee that will rewrite the NCLB Act: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Chris Dodd. And while the pressure is coming from the White House and many members of Congress to hold firm on accountability measures, the loudest complaints about NCLB are coming from educators and parents on the local level who are talking directly to candidates on the presidential campaign trail. It is likely that if there is NCLB progress next year, those candidates will want to tell voters that they supported making the law less burdensome. The other candidates, Democratic and Republican alike, have expressed support for current law with states being given more flexibility while some have called for repeal of the law. The final two candidates, however, will want their parties in Congress to be in sync with their campaign platforms regarding education, which will make it hard to build the consensus necessary to reauthorize the law next year.
No one wants NCLB more than the President. After its passage there was a massive effort to brand NCLB–from red school houses built at each entrance of the U.S. Department of Education to data-driven press events celebrating rising student scores and narrowing performance gaps among groups of students. To a large extent the branding campaigns leading up to and following NCLB have been successful. Yet some argue that the law has become a victim of its own brand in that it is so closely identified with a President unpopular in the polls.
Task may fall to new Congress/President
The complicated reform issues to be resolved, the pressures to keep accountability measures in line with the law’s original intent, and especially the 2008 presidential election are likely to make NCLB reauthorization the challenge of a new Congress and a new president in 2009.
Leo Coco is TCTA’s lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He is a senior policy advisor with the law firm of Nelson Mullins, with a background that includes extensive experience in the U.S. Department of Education.
Web posted: 11/29/07 from The Classroom Teacher, Winter 2007
