Subscribe, Unsubscribe Share this page

		Past Extra Credits February 7 All issues

Helping States, school districts, and schools meet the challenge of successfully implementing the No Child Left Behind Act remains one of President Bush's highest priorities. The 2006 request for education generally would support activities carried out in the 2006-2007 school year—including assessments in reading and math for all students in grades 3-8 and the requirement that all teachers be highly qualified. To help make the changes and improvements needed to continue delivering on the promise of No Child Left Behind, the 2006 request includes the following:

• $13.3 billion for Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies, an increase of $603 million, or 4.7 percent, to help States, school districts, and schools meet the strong accountability and teacher quality requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. If enacted, the request would result in a $4.6 billion, or 52 percent, increase for Title I since enactment of NCLB.
• $412 million for State Assessment Grants to maintain statutorily required levels of support for State-level development and implementation of the annual assessments required by NCLB, including the science assessments that States will implement by 2007-2008. The request would make available almost $12 million for new competitive grants focused on using technology to support innovative test design.
• $2.92 billion for Improving Teacher Quality State Grants to help States ensure that all teachers of core academic subjects are highly qualified, as required by NCLB.
• $500 million for a new Teacher Incentive Fund, which would provide formula grants to reward effective teachers and create incentives to attract qualified teachers to high-need schools, as well as competitive grants to design and implement performance-based compensation systems that change the way school districts pay teachers.
• $1.0 billion for Reading First State Grants to maintain support for efforts under way in all 50 States to provide comprehensive, research-based reading instruction for children in grades K-3. The request would fulfill President Bush's commitment to provide $5 billion over five years to help ensure that all students can read on grade level by the end of the third grade.
• $104 million for Early Reading First to continue the pre-school component of Reading First, which funds competitive grants to develop and support the school readiness of preschool-aged children in high-poverty communities.
• $676 million for English Language Acquisition to support flexible, performance-based formula grants to help ensure that limited English proficient (LEP) students learn English and meet the same high academic standards as all other students. States must use a portion of their awards to increase the size of grants to districts that have experienced a significant increase in the percentage or number of recent immigrant students over the preceding two years.
• $164 million for Research, Development, and Dissemination to maintain support for ongoing initiatives critical to the success of the NCLB Act, including research on reading comprehension, mathematics and science education, teacher quality, and cognition and learning in the classroom, as well as a new program of field-initiated evaluations of promising education products and approaches to find out what works in the classroom.