Rep. Andrews Fights to Improve No Child Left Behind Law

As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, I have worked to make No Child Left Behind more flexible and to improve key provisions addressing special education, English language learners and the use of supplemental services to help students and schools in need.   Below is a recent article by the Gloucester County Times urging me to make NCLB more flexible.  I agree with attempts to make No Child Left Behind more flexible and will work to include these provisions in next week’s reauthorization.

Below is an article by the Gloucester County Times:

Officials call for No Child' changes
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
By Jessica Beym
jbeym@sjnewsco.com

As Congress began hearings Monday to discuss re-authorizing the five-year-old No Child Left Behind act, state educators and local elected officials had a message to send to Washington.
One size does not fit all.   The education reform law, proposed in 2001 by President George W. Bush, aims to close the academic achievement gap and have every student proficient in math, reading and science by 2014.

In Gloucester County, where about 35 percent of the schools in 2006-2007 did not meet annual testing benchmarks, county freeholders and some educators are calling for a change.
"We feel it is a national problem and it definitely impacts us here in New Jersey," said Freeholder Joseph Brigandi, who serves as the board's education liaison.

"You give them credit for saying We don't want to leave any child behind.' It's admirable," Brigandi said. "But without adequate funding, and taking into account different levels of abilities, we feel it's just impossible the way it's worded now for everyone to comply."   The freeholders recently passed a resolution urging U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews (D-1st Dist. of Haddon Heights) to support an amendment to the law to provide more local flexibility and full federal funding.

Their resolution supports one drafted by the National Association of Counties (NACo), which calls for more state and local control over the assessments used to evaluate students with disabilities as well as those for whom English is a second language.   The Education and Labor Committee, of which Andrews is a member, held open hearings Monday on a 1,000 page document that will be turned into proposed legislation during the week of Sept. 24.

Andrews's spokesman Bill Caruso said the congressman supports the full funding of the law. He plans to bring attention to special education students, English learners and the use of supplemental services to helps students and schools in need, Caruso said.
"I agree with attempts to make No Child Left Behind more flexible and will work to include these provisions," Andrews said. "The Education Committee will be considering these proposals this month."

NACO suggests that the law be amended so that the students who are not fluent in English can have time to fully learn the language before being tested on the same level as their English speaking peers.   It also recommends that each classified special education student be assessed based on his or her own individual educational program not the achievement goals of the general student population.   It is this subgroup of students that caused 25 schools in Gloucester County to miss the annual benchmarks for 2006-2007.

When a school district misses the federal goal for just one of the 40 indicators, the district is subject to sanctions, such as offering intra-district school choice, providing tutoring, and developing improvement plans.
"I think there's a fundamental unfairness about this," said Gloucester County Superintendent H. Mark Stanwood.   Stanwood said the law should be revised to reward schools for progress and "understand all the variables that are associated with student performance."
The New Jersey Education Association, which sent some of its representatives to the hearings in Washington on Monday, wants to see Congress amend the law to use more than just standardized tests to assess student achievement.

"One size doesn't fit all, and that's what No Child Left Behind tries to do," said NJEA spokeswoman Kathy Coulibaly. "We have very diverse communities, and diverse students with different needs. It's not realistic to expect the same results, particularly when [the act] has not been fully funded."  "Cooperation at the local level will help fix these problems," Coulibaly added.

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