The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), whose most recent version is called No Child Left Behind (NCLB), has now shaped federal public education policy for ten years.  This past summer the National Research Council declared  that NCLB’s test-and-punish system has “ not increased student achievement enough to bring the United States close to the levels of the highest achieving countries,” and when states make passage of the federally required high school exam a requirement for high school graduation, it “ decreases the rate of high school graduation without increasing achievement.” 

Although Congress is supposed to reauthorize the ESEA every five years, the 2002 NCLB version is now long overdue to be overhauled.  Still Congress dithers.  The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee actually passed a bill out of committee in October of 2011, but while  the proposed bill eliminates the onerous 2014 deadline that is projected to declare the majority of U.S. public schools failures, the Senate version continues to test students with multiple choice standardized tests and punish rather than helping the schools that struggle.

The Senate version does not reflect the priorities Justice & Witness Ministries has continued to endorse:

• Address public school inequality by allocating federal resources for equity and pressing states to close opportunity gaps.
• Allocate Title I funds to support schools serving children in poverty  through a fair formula, not a competition. Poor children should not lose federal support because their state loses a funding competition.
• Reduce reliance on standardized tests and test only in ways that improve instruction, measure real performance, and encourage exploration, imagination, and critical thinking.
• Support and improve, rather than punishing, the public schools in America’s poorest communities.
• Address issues outside school that affect school achievement such as racial segregation, concentrated poverty, and the need for pre-school that helps children before they fall behind.
• Reject market-based, technocratic policies and improve public  education as the bedrock of our society and public schools as the anchors of communities. As a people called to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must insist that Congress balances the needs of each particular child and family with the need to ensure a strong public system that secures the rights and addresses the needs of all children.

Even if the full Senate were to pass the bill as it was passed out of committee, House Education and Workforce Committee leaders have pretty much admitted they won't get agreement on a bipartisan bill in 2012.  A reauthorization will likely now be put off until 2013, because Congress will avoid a divisive issue in an election year.

In the meantime, the Department of Education has promised to grant states unilateral waivers from the law’s most punitive consequences, but the catch is that to qualify, states must present accountability plans based on the Department’s own favorite punishments for schools unable quickly to raise scores, including merit pay for teachers based on test scores and other punitive turnaround plans.  A small group of states applied for waivers in November; more are expected to do so in February.  Most experts are tracking the waiver process carefully, because a reauthorization continues to fade into the future.