Forum on Educational Accountability

Summary of Proposed Legislative Changes to ESEA/NCLB

                                                                        March 2007

 The current version of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), called "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB), needs fundamental change. The Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA) has submitted legislative language based on the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB to the U.S. House and Senate Education Committees that would remake the law into an effective tool for school improvement.

 

These proposals address major structural flaws of NCLB – "adequate yearly progress," intense standardized testing, and harmful sanctions – while promoting support for essential systemwide   improvements, reasonable growth expectations, and the use of multiple sources of evidence.

 

Educationally Helpful Assessments:

            -  Require fewer but higher quality assessments. Current law mandates annual reading and math tests in grades 3-8 plus once in high school, as well as science tests in three grades. Instead, require state-level reading, math and science assessments once each in elementary, middle and high school.

            - Provide support to states and districts to help develop high-quality local assessments for use in all grades. These can include classroom, school and district tests; extended writing assignments; tasks, projects, performances, and exhibitions; and collected samples of student classroom work, portfolios or learning records. ESEA would initially fund 10 pilot programs in states, with more states to follow.

           

Rational Expectations for Improvement:

            - Hold schools accountable for implementing systemic changes, including professional development and family support, that can produce significant improvements in education.

            - Use growth measures that incorporate multiple sources of evidence, including local assessments and graduation and grade promotion rates. Continue to report outcome data by demographic groups.

            -Establish expected rates of improvement in student learning that are based on performance gains that significant numbers of Title I schools have actually attained.

 

Support Instead of Punishment:

            - Eliminate NCLB's sanctions, including mandated supplemental services (tutoring), school transfers, "restructuring," governance changes, and privatizing control of schools.

            - Use federal and state funds equal to 40% of Title I allocations to strengthen locally-controlled professional development, parental involvement and family support.

            - Require monitoring and interventions to provide more intensive and tailored assistance to schools that have difficulty implementing systemic changes or are unable to meet the required rates of improvement after five years.

 

FEA is a working group of some of the signers of the Joint Statement. The legislative language, Joint Statement, and the report Rethinking Accountability are available at www.edaccountability.org.