Campaign Features

Restructuring NCLB Campaign: Key Features
CES continues to engage directly in its own writing, speaking and lobbying efforts to reframe the American school reform debate and restructure NCLB and portions of HEA. In addition, since early 2004, CES has done much of its work through a coalition of national organizations, known as the Forum on Educational Accountability (FEA). FEA is a working group from among the 151 national education, civil rights, religious, disability, parent, civic and labor organizations, representing more than 50 million Americans, that have signed the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB. The Joint Statement includes principles for restructuring NCLB, as well as portions of HEA, so as to accomplish NCLB's goals.

CES has played a major role in developing and publicly promoting FEA’s positions, including serving as Chair, FEA Committee on Capacity-building and as a principal drafter of many of FEA’s advocacy documents. (CES was a principal drafter of all the FEA documents below identified with an *.)

The following featured works are important components of CES’ campaign to restructure NCLB/HEA. They include: CES’ pathbreaking 2003 “Open Letter to President Bush and Congress” explaining how to restructure NCLB; the 2004 Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, now signed by 151 national organizations representing more than 50 million people; Gary Ratner’s seminal law review article on “Why NCLB Needs To Be Restructured”; FEA’s detailed report and legislative recommendations for amending NCLB; FEA’s comments on various aspects of Congressman George Miller’s August/September 2007 Discussion Draft ESEA Reauthorization bill and our rebuttal of Secretary Spellings; and FEA’s December 2007 proposals to all Presidential Candidates.

• "Proposed Requirements for 'School Improvement Grants' Have Some Valuable Content, But Need Substantial Revision", FEA Comments on Secretary of Education's Notice of Proposed Requirements for "School Improvement Grants" (SIG) (September 25, 2009)*
  
  FEA's public comments on Secretary Duncans proposed requirements for $3.5 billion SIG program.  Comments address: replacement of staff; assessments; professional development; family and community support and involvement; curriculum; charter schools, CMOs and EMOs; resources; flexibility; state technical assistance capacity; reporting; and funding cut-offs after one or two years.
  
  
• "Draft Guidelines for Race to the Top Has Some Good Ideas, But Priorities Need Changing" (PDF), FEA Comments on Secretary of Education's Notice of Proposed Priorities, Requirements, Definitions and Selection Criteria for "Race to the Top Fund" (RTTT), (August 27, 2009)*
  
  FEAs public comments on Secretary Duncan's proposals for how to implement the $4.3 billion RTTT program.  Comments address: which factors should be given the most weight; assessments; data collection/opportunity to learn; teacher and principal quality; school turnaround; family engagement; and improving state capacity.
  
  
• "Empowering Schools and Improving Learning: A Joint Organizational Statement on the Federal Role in Public Schooling", Forum on Educational Accountability (June 11, 2009), including list of national organizational signers
  
  FEA's second overall, and expanded, statement on what the ESEA reauthorization should contain, including a new section on improving state data collection and strategy for enhancing equity and adequacy of resources, as well as more detailed policies on capacity building and accountability.  Also includes a separate "vision" for what American public education should be.
  
  
• "Extending ESEA 'Accountability' Beyond Student Performance to Measuring, Scoring, Evaluating and Reporting Implementation of Systemic Changes - A Working Paper" (PDF), by Gary Ratner and Monty Neill for FEA (October 17, 2008)
  
  Addresses six key reforms in professional development and family support that the ESEA reauthorization should require all of the highest poverty and lowest achievement Title I-funded schools to implement, and then, to regularly measure, score, evaluate and to report on the status of their implementation. Paper shows how these six systemic factors - that cannot be precisely quantified - could still be appropriately measured, scored, evaluated and reported. Measurement and reporting of such non student-performance factors is essential to shift the emphasis of ESEA "accountability" from sanctioning schools for failing test scores to holding them responsible for implementing systemic improvements. (This is only a "working paper" in that it is intended to show that schools could be held accountable for implementing systemic improvements and a basic approach for how to do this, but it does not go in depth into all six factors, is not based on a literature review, could need changes in details and invites further thinking by others.)
  


• "Brief Thoughts on the Nature, Scope and History of the African American Achievement Gap, with Emphasis on the Impact of Education Law and Policy," (PDF) Talk to Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Issue Forum, Capitol Hill (March 6, 2008)
  
  Includes dramatic 2007 NAEP statistics on the current African American achievement gap, as well as how slavery began, and post-Civil War "separate and unequal" policies, "tracking", the state "standards, assessments and accountability" movement and the No Child Left Behind Act perpetuate, the achievement gap.
  
  
• FEA Letter to Presidential Candidates, "Changing the Education Debate in 2008" (PDF) (December 19, 2007)*
  
  Sent by FEA to every Presidential candidate, Republican and Democrat.  Urges each candidate to grab the unique opportunity of this campaign to reframe the debate on the federal role in school reform by adopting FEA's principles and legislative recommendations.
  
  
• FEA Chart Contrasting Positions of NCLB and FEA (PDF), with accompanying Letter to all Members of Congress (November 5, 2007)*
  
  Chart contrasts: the overall assessment and accountability approaches of the current law and FEA’s recommendations; their underlying assumptions; each approach’s effects on schools’ behavior; policies on critical elements; objections raised to each approach; and their predictable results.
  
  
• FEA Recommendations to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (PDF) (“Senate Education Committee”) to reframe NCLB’s approach to professional development (September 20, 2007)*, with similar Recommendations to House Education and Labor Committee (PDF) (“House Education Committee”) (September 28, 2007)*
  
  Focuses, in part, on the need for ESEA to: require high poverty/low performing Title I-funded schools to regularly allocate time for, and provide, critical staff development now, rather than waiting years – until they fail Adequate Yearly Progress – to improve; increase the mandated funding allocated for professional development from about 10% to 20%, with a required 20% state match for this purpose; and require localities and states to publish annual narrative reports on what steps they’ve taken to implement the required systemic improvements, obstacles faced and actions taken to surmount the obstacles.
  
  
• FEA Recommendations to House Education and Labor Committee (PDF) (“House Education Committee” to Amend Title II of Miller/McKeon Discussion Draft, ESEA Reauthorization bill (September 18, 2007, incorporating revisions of October 30, 2007)*
  
  Chiefly focuses on recommendations to enhance professional development of teachers.
  
  
• FEA Recommendations to House Education Committee (PDF) to amend Title I of Miller/McKeon Discussion Draft, ESEA Reauthorization bill (September 5, 2007)*
  
  Detailed explanation of various changes needed to make Title I of Discussion Draft compatible with FEA’s overall ESEA legislative recommendations.
  
  
• FEA Letter to Senate and House Education Committees (PDF) rebutting criticism of FEA by Secretary Spellings and Education Trust (June 21, 2007)*
  
  Refutes arguments for perpetuating NCLB mandate that all students score “proficient” by 2014 and reliance on a single state standardized test in reading and math.
  
  
• FEA Legislative Recommendations to Senate Education Committee to amend ESEA (PDF), “Proposed ESEA/NCLB Amendments” (March 30, 2007)*, with same Recommendations to House Education Committee (April 5, 2007)*
  
  Comprehensive legislative language and specifications to amend ESEA to carry out recommendations of FEA-authored report on capacity building and FEA-commissioned report on assessments. Includes important changes needed in ESEA to build the capacity of public school stakeholders, focusing on specific systemic changes required in: professional development of teachers, principals and pupil services personnel; adult literacy and parenting skills for families, and adult mentors for children without families available; and changes in the accountability and funding schemes to redirect accountability from tests and sanctions to implementing systemic changes to improve learning.
  
  
• FEA Recommendations to Senate Education Committee (PDF) to amend Higher Education Act reauthorization bill on teacher preparation and certification (March 26, 2007)*, with similar Recommendations to House Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness Subcommittee (PDF) (May 15, 2007)*
  
  Advocacy to integrate coursework with, and greatly lengthen, clinical preparation of teachers, adopt strategies to enable teachers to teach higher-order skills, and apply comparable standards for “highly qualified teachers” to traditional candidates and those from alternative routes to certification.
  
  
• Gary Ratner, “Why The No Child Left Behind Act Needs To Be Restructured To Accomplish Its Goals and How To Do It” (PDF), University of the District of Columbia Law Review, 9 UDC/DCSL L. Rev. 1 (Winter/March 2007)
  
  In-depth analysis of: NCLB’s goals, assessment results, and gaps in student achievement between poor and minority students and their peers; NCLB’s structure; respects in which it is based on faulty premises and therefore needs to be restructured to accomplish its goals; and how to do so.
  
  
• FEA’s Report, “Redefining Accountability: Improving Student Learning by Building Capacity” (PDF) (February 2007)*
  
  Detailed summary and analysis of critical changes needed in ESEA policy. (This report provided the foundation for many of the legislative changes described in the FEA Legislative Recommendations above.)
  
  
• Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind Act (October 21, 2004), including list of 137 national organizational signers as of June 26, 2007*
  
  FEA’s founding document. Central theme: “Overall, the law’s emphasis needs to shift from applying sanctions for failing to raise test scores to holding states and localities accountable for making the systemic changes that improve student achievement.” Includes declaration of 14 principles for restructuring NCLB to accomplish its goals, including accountability, assessments, capacity building, sanctions and funding.
  
  
• Open Letter to President Bush and Congress (PDF), “To Accomplish ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act Goal of Academic Competence for All Students, We Need To Move Beyond ‘Accountability’” (October 15, 2003)
  
  CES’ path-breaking call for fundamentally amending NCLB’s entire Adequate Yearly Progress –based accountability strategy, and portions of the Higher Education Act, to concentrate on providing: effective preparation and training of teachers, principals and superintendents; intensive adult literacy and parenting skills training for families of very low-performing students and adult mentors for such children without families available; and funding for these systemic reforms chiefly by the federal government.