Education Week - August 5, 2015 - 21

* Point of Conflict

KEY:

* Notable Shift From Current Law and/or Waivers
By Alyson Klein

No Child Left Behind Act:

Waivers:

House Bill:

Senate Bill:

FUNDING PROVISIONS
■

■
■

States have to keep their own spending to a
certain level in order to tap federal funds, called
"maintenance of effort."
Federal money can't replace state and local dollars.
If 40 percent of a school's population is in poverty,
the school can use federal Title I money with all its
students. Otherwise, Title I funds have to be targeted
to low-income students who are at risk of struggling
academically.

■

Schools that are designated as low-performing can
use federal Title I funds for the disadvantaged with all
their students-even if less than 40 percent of the
students are in poverty.

■ Would repeal maintenance of effort.

■ Would change the formula for distributing

Would keep the prohibition on federal money replacing
state and local dollars.
■ If 40 percent of a school's population is in poverty,
the school could use federal Title I money with all its
students.
■ Would make a small change to the Title I formula, but
stop short of sweeping changes to how the dollars are
distributed.

Title I dollars so that there's less of an emphasis on
population. The changes wouldn't kick in until the
Title I program, now funded at more than
$14 billion, reaches $17 billion.
■ Would keep in place "maintenance of effort."
■ Would give states and school districts more flexibility
in how they meet their required levels of funding.
■ Schools that get Title I funds would be required to target
them to low-income, academically at-risk students,
unless 40 percent of their students are in poverty.
Schools can get flexibility in this area, if needed.

■

FEDERAL PROGRAMS AND PRESCHOOL
■

Authorizes a wide range of programs, including
separate funding streams for disadvantaged
students, English-language learners, migrant
students, after-school programs, education
technology, and other areas. There's no separate
funding stream for preschool.

■

No changes to the number of programs authorized
under the NCLB law.

■

Would merge programs aimed at migrant students,
English-language learners, and neglected or
delinquent children with the much larger Title I
program for disadvantaged students.
Districts could use the funds for any activity allowed
under those programs.
No money could be transferred out of Title I schools,
but funds could go to other low-income schools.
Would get rid of, or consolidate, nearly 70 programs.

Would maintain separate programs for disadvantaged
students, migrant students, English-language
learners, and other special populations.
■ Would eliminate some federal programs, but also
create a preschool program for the first time in ESEA.
■

Dueling ESEA Bills Headed to Conference on Capitol Hill
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

footprint that Republicans are adamant about.
The conferees will also debate
whether to maintain two provisions
in the House bill that are not in the
Senate bill. One would allow Title
I dollars for low-income children to
follow them to the schools of their
choice-known as "portability." Another would eliminate language in
the current law that lets the federal
government punish schools and
states that have lots of students opting out of state tests.
"This is a complicated piece of legislation," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, RTenn., a co-author of the Senate bill.
"There are crocodiles in every corner."
The process is set to begin in
earnest once lawmakers return to
Washington in September from their
five-week summer break with the expressed goal of delivering a bill to the
president by fall's end. The law has
been due for reauthorization since
2007.

Accountability Issues
When the Senate passed its ESEA
revision 81-17, Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan applauded the bipartisan effort, but was quick to argue that
the bill does not include enough protections for the most disadvantaged
students.
"This bill still falls short of truly
giving every child a fair shot at success by failing to ensure that parents
and children can count on local leaders to take action when students are
struggling to learn," Mr. Duncan said.
"We need to identify which schools
work and which ones don't, so we
can guarantee that every child will
have the education they need," he
said. "We cannot tolerate continued
indifference to the lowest-performing
schools, achievement gaps that let

some students fall behind, or high
schools where huge numbers of students never make it to graduation."
Mr. Duncan's sentiments ran parallel with those of civil rights groups
that slammed the Senate bill and
contended that it doesn't go nearly
far enough when it comes to accountability for low-income students and
racial minorities.
During the two-week floor debate,
the Senate rejected an amendment
from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.,
that would have required states to
establish measurable state-designed
goals for all students and separately
for each subgroup of students, and to
intervene if they didn't meet those
goals. It also would have required
states to intervene in their lowestperforming 5 percent of schools and
those that graduated less than 67
percent of their students.
Democrats threw their weight behind the amendment, garnering support from 42 of their members. That
was more than they had expected,
given that the National Education
Association, a traditional Democratic
ally, had been lobbying senators to oppose the proposal.
Though the amendment failed, the
tally in favor yielded enough bodies
to show that, along with the dozen
or so Republicans who are expected
to vote against the bill no matter
what, the Democrats would be able to
block final passage of a conferenced
bill should it not include stronger accountability language.
In an interview after the passage
of the bill, Sen. Alexander, who chairs
the Senate education committee, acknowledged that discrepancies over
accountability exist and reiterated
his commitment to getting a bill to
President Obama "that he's comfortable signing."
But when asked about the prospects of increasing safeguards during the conference process, he said:

"I'll need to be convinced. My goal
and the goal of the bill is to keep the
important measures of accountability-keep the report cards, keep the
tests-so we'll know how the children
are doing, but turn over what to do
about the tests and the accountability
for getting a result to the states and
local school boards."
"I think that's real accountability,"
Sen. Alexander continued. "The president would like to have more federal
involvement in that accountability
process. I understand that. We'll just
have to discuss that."
Whatever compromise senators
may make on accountability, though,
would have to pass muster in the
House, where a solid block of Republicans and Democrats would need
to support the bill for it to pass. The
House version passed by just 218213. Accepting a proposal with an
increased federal role could prove
difficult for House Speaker John
Boehner, R-Ohio, who has promised
not to allow a vote on anything that
might not garner support from a majority of his caucus.

Title I and School Choice
Just as Democrats will push during
the conference process for greater accountability and safeguards for disadvantaged students, Republicans
will dig in their heels to support provisions that would hand even more
control to states and local districts
and give parents and students even
more say over their education.
They're likely to lobby the hardest
for two provisions in particular: the
one concerning Title I portability, and
the one focusing on opting out of standardized tests.
While both are included in the
House bill, Republicans may have a
tough time getting such language into
a final brokered ESEA overhaul.
For starters, the Senate considered

but ultimately rejected three different
amendments that would have added
to the underlying bill similar portability and opt-out provisions.
An amendment from Sen. Tim
Scott, R-S.C., would have allowed
Title I aid to follow students to the
schools of their choice. Another
amendment, from Sen. Alexander,
would have given low-income students $2,100 vouchers to use at the
public or private schools of their
choice. And a proposal from Sen.
Steve Daines, R-Mont., would have
ensured the right of students to opt
out of tests.
Notably, the White House, which
had already threatened to veto the
House bill over a variety of issues,
promised to veto any legislation that
includes Title I portability language.
After the Senate passed its ESEA reauthorization bill, Mr. Alexander's coauthor, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.,
sought to fend off school choice and
opt-out language ahead of the conference. She noted that such provisions
played a major role in the House bill's
one-sided support.
"Their bill doesn't represent one
end and ours represents another,
where we have to meet in the middle,"
Sen. Murray said. "Their bill really
represents an unacceptable partisan
approach and path, and ours represents a carefully negotiated compromise with just a few important steps
to go."

Finding Common Ground
There are also some important similarities between the two measures.
Both would eliminate the current
accountability system, with its measure known as adequate yearly progress, and allow states to create their
own systems instead. They would
also both maintain the current annual federal testing schedule and the
requirement that states disaggregate

student-achievement data, including
by such student groups as race and
English-language-learner status.
Under both proposals, states
wouldn't be forced to evaluate their
teachers.
And both rewrites include strong
language that would prohibit the U.S.
secretary of education from coercing
or requiring or offering incentives
to states to adopt any specific set of
standards, including the Common
Core State Standards.
"A president named Reagan used to
say: If you got 80 percent of what you
wanted, you might take it and fight
for the rest on another day," Sen. Alexander said before the final vote on
the Senate bill. "I am recommending
we follow this advice."

Impact on Waivers
Ultimately, the best argument for
supporting a conferenced bill may
not be what the proposal itself says,
but the immediate impact its passage
would have in allowing states to relinquish their Obama administrationgranted waivers from parts of the
nearly 14-year-old NCLB law.
For Republicans, that would equate
to kicking the federal government
out of schools. And for Democrats,
the outcome would provide a stable
federal law for all 50 states and rule
out the possibility that a Republican
administration would use the waivers to push its own education policy
priorities.
"There is a lot of work that lies
ahead," Rep. John Kline, R-Minn,
the author of the House plan and
the chairman of his chamber's education committee, said in a statement
about moving to the conference process. "But I am confident we will find
common ground and send a bill to the
president's desk that helps ensure
every child in every school receives
an excellent education."

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