NCLB has taken a back seat to the stimulus plan.  

Economic Stimulus Plan is the new priority:

The more than $140 billion in additional federal spending for education in the stimulus bill is almost double the current discretionary budget of $59.2 billion. The entire 2008 U.S. Department of Education budget was $62.6 billion. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee released the highlights of its version of the economic recovery package.  Preliminary numbers show the Senate version will include $1.7 billion less for the Pell Grant Program and $2.5 billion less for higher education school construction.  The Senate bill would provide an additional $2 billion for K-12 school modernization and repair.  

The K-12 education funding would come from various components of the stimulus package.  The legislation includes a $79 billion fund to help states to prevent cuts in services, the bulk of which is slated for education.  On top of that, the measure outlines specific aid for school construction, support for early-childhood education, and substantial spending boosts for major Education Department programs, including Title I grants for educating disadvantaged students and aid for special education.

Opposition to the amount of education funding has been voiced by Republicans.  Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA), ranking Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, has indicated concern with "all" of the education funding in the stimulus package. 

In a discussion with a Republican education committee staffer, they said the concern that McKeon has with the education funding is it does little to stimulate the economy, and that any additions to the education budget should be done through the normal appropriations process.  For instance, the aide pointed to the $2.1 billion in Head Start and Early Head Start funding that is included in both the House and Senate versions of the stimulus proposal.  "What is the quick payback there? Those kids, before they start adding to the economy, it's going to be like 20 years."

House Republicans also say they are concerned that the education programs included in the stimulus — such as an increase in the maximum Pell grant — will be impossible to cut back once implemented.  The aide repeated that McKeon will try to scale back the education funding. 

The funding in the bill does come with a few strings.  To receive its share of the $79 billion in education fiscal relief, a state must provide assurances that it is achieving equity in teacher distribution (as required by NCLB), improving collection and use of data from preschool through postsecondary education by establishing a longitudinal data system, and enhancing the quality of academic assessments required by NCLB.

Once a final bill is signed into law, we'll provide more details.  You can read the House and Senate versions on the THOMAS site (enter "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" in the search box for the 111th Congress).  Also check out the Congressional Research Service's summary of potential allocations for Title I, IDEA, and school modernization in every school district in the nation.

For more information about the education portions of the stimulus plan, see:

Creating and saving jobs: http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/ARRA-CreatingAndSavingJobs.pdf

Thank you Arnold Fege for the above update. 

As of the February  2009, it doesn’t look like Congress is going to address NCLB. We’ll keep you posted. While our elected officials sit in Washington, afraid and unwilling to make the needed changes or scrap NCLB in it’s entirety, our children are stuck in schools with out enough books, in over crowded classrooms, with stressed out teachers and either taking tests or practicing for tests.

Call your elected official and urge them to do what they were elected to do—FIX NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND.

If you don’t know how to reach your elected officials, go to house.gov. Write them, call them, take to the streets. We must do everything we can to get rid of this horrible legislation.

No Child Left Behind— It sounds like an affirmation or prayer—No Child Left Behind. And who wouldn’t agree to this as the primary goal of any public education system? But George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act” (NCLB) has been anything but uncontroversial. With NCLB up for reauthorization, Voices for Education has partnered with Congressman Raul Grijalva’s office to help ensure that Arizona’s parents, educators and public education supporters have their voices heard in this critical national debate. Learn more about Voices for Education’s NCLB Community Forums and our community’s priorities for reauthorization.

Community Forums

In Spring 2007, about 750 parents, educators and community members from across the state came together in two NCLB Community Forums hosted by Voices for Education and Congressman Raul Grijalva’s office. The goal of these forums was to give our communities a chance to speak out about NCLB—to describe its impact on our students and to have a part in shaping the reauthorization of the act.

We know that people are passionate about our students and they are concerned about NCLB. They are concerned about our special needs students— they cannot see the sense or humanity in testing students at grade level when they have no chance of success. They are concerned about ESL students and the consequences of testing them regardless of their English proficiency; about AYP and the punitive measures for failing schools; about military access to student data; about large class sizes, particularly in the early grades; about the decrease in science and math AP classes that lead to students maxing out of options before they graduate; and about the definition of highly qualified teachers and how this creates barriers to those with passion and ability.

Our Communities’ Priorities for NCLB

Reauthorization

Here are some of the recommendations from the forums:

• To provide adequate funding

• To quit punishing struggling schools

• To have a national minimum salary for teachers, beginning at $40,000 a year

• To restore the Class Size Reduction program that existed prior to NCLB and aimed to provide an optimum class size of 15 students. And as a part of this, school districts should receive federal support in order to modernize schools to accommodate smaller classes.

• To secure funding in order to enable school districts to offer additional benefits to teachers who work at high-risk and failing schools.

• To increase the number of PIRC sites.

• To demand that military recruiters cannot gain privileged access to both our students and their personal data.

• To scratch the Reading First program

• To provide block grants to states for incentives for math and science teachers who teach in at-risk schools.

• To scrap the whole 900 pages and create a law that helps children achieve the highest standards

• To use a variety of assessments—don’t rely on a single test

• To stop violating the IDEA law and allow special education students to use accommodations while being tested

For those of you located in Tucson, we invite you to join staff of Voices for Education for our NCLB study group. This group of passionate public education supporters meets monthly in order to track the reauthorization process and advocate for a great reauthorization. For more information call 324-0881.