Senate DFLers target No Child Left Behind law

02/25/2005

Norman Draper, Star Tribune
February 25, 2005

Senate DFLers launched this year’s revolt against the federal No Child Left Behind testing and school accountability law Thursday, saying they will try to yank Minnesota out from under the law’s requirements unless big changes are made.

For the state to thumb its nose at the federal government would have financial risks; as much as $250 million per year in federal school funds could be withheld from Minnesota if it decides to opt out of the law’s requirements.

But the Senate DFLers, led by Sen. Steve Kelley of Hopkins, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, say it’s worth the risk.

Kelley said the law’s requirements are too inflexible, mandating a one-size-fits-all education reform plan for every school nationwide. He also criticized its sole dependence on state tests to determine how schools are doing. He said the No Child Left Behind goal of making sure all students are proficient in reading and math by the year 2014 is “statistically unachievable.”

Kelley also ripped the law’s sanctions as too severe. Those sanctions, which have been a sore point with educators, can require schools to provide students with transportation to different schools, make added materials and teaching available, and ultimately be subject to state takeover if they don’t meet testing goals for all their different groups of students for a certain number of consecutive years.

Kelley was co-chairman of a national legislative task force which on Thursday attacked No Child Left Behind as deeply flawed, underfunded and an unconstitutional intrusion into local school business. Still, Kelley stressed that it’s the methods of the law, not its goals, with which he takes issue.

“All of us recognize that states need to be committed to the goals of No Child Left Behind,” he said. “We also believe that it’s the states and school districts that know best how to achieve those goals.”

Tough love?

Kelley said bills introduced in the Senate would call on the federal government to ease up on its No Child Left Behind requirements. If that didn’t happen by July 1, 2006, then the state would drop out. Should there be a loss of federal funds, other state funds would have to make up for it, according to a provision of the bill. According to Kelley, other states have discussed either pulling out of the requirements, or enacting other measures designed to make the feds loosen up on the No Child Left Behind reins.

The law’s proponents say it is a tough-love measure designed to force schools to get serious about improving the performance of their poor and minority students. They say it’s what’s needed to close the yawning achievement gap between the poor and the well-to-do, and between white and minority students.

Bills at the state level last year designed to modify the law or nullify it got tied up in legislative gridlock and went nowhere.

Kelley said he has yet to get Republican senators to sign on to the anti-No Child Left Behind measures. But there are Republican legislators who disapprove of the law who have expressed interest in the past in opting out of it.

Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, who is the senior DFLer on the House K-12 education budget division, said similar measures, which have bipartisan support, are in the works in the House.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has voiced support of the law, calling it an important measure to improve student accountability.

“Governor Pawlenty understands and has heard the concerns, but he believes we must have strong accountability in our schools,” said Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung. “The governor does not support opting out in Minnesota.”