Law conference sheds light on ESEA
Law conference sheds a little light on ESEA
One of the reasons the Brustein and Manasevit national conferences are sold out is that participants receive timely and important updates about recent events in federal education legislation and administrative law. Their 14th Annual Spring Conference in Washington D.C. did not disappoint as presentations regarding ESEA reauthorization were “standing room only” and focused on answering the what, when, and how of ESEA reauthorization. The following is my summary of the general consensus of the firm’s lawyers and invited congressional presenters:
When will it happen?
Congressional staff members were hesitant to set a date for reauthorization; however, there was general agreement from law staff that a realistic date for state and school district implementation will be the 2011-12 school year. It was pointed out that it took the Bush administration one year to sign NCLB into law. Serious congressional hearings began on ESEA authorization in April and if they finish their work by the end of summer, the 2011 date looks realistic.
What will it look like?
- A major criticism of NCLB was the unrealistic requirement that all students must reach proficiency by 2013-14. This date will be removed, the concept of AYP will disappear, and emphasis will be placed on individual student growth toward proficiency rather than an arbitrary date.
- Emphasis will be placed on achieving standards that are based on preparing students for college and careers. The Obama administration favors the adoption of nationwide standards and is giving extra points on competitive grants to states that adopt the common standards developed by the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. These standards reflect an attempt to broaden the curriculum beyond the NCLB narrow emphasis on reading and mathematics.
- The NCLB requirement for highly qualified teachers will change to highly effective teachers and principals. It will be interesting to see if agreement will be reached on how effectiveness will be measured to control for variables not under the control of the teacher or principal.
- Focus will be on allocating funds for intervention in the lowest performing schools and reducing the drop-out rate at high schools.
- ESEA will prescribe the models for turning around the lowest achieving 5% of schools but will allow flexibility to determine consequences for other low performing school. The prescriptive models will be those that are currently required for schools receiving School Improvement Funds.
- There will continue to be a move toward competitive grants as opposed to formula allocations.
How to comply?
The strong advice from lawyers at Brustein and Manasevits in the interim between ESEA reauthorization and NCLB, is: “ The law is the law and the law is NCLB. Districts must continue to comply with the requirements of NCLB. Choice, SES, parent notification and other NCLB requirements remain the education law of the land until ESEA reauthorization is final.”
Hi Forest,
As you know, California also has ELD Standards for all grades and all levels of ELD. Do the National Standards also contain ELD? If yes, are they embedded in the National Standards or as in California, a separate list?
Thanks for your question. It made me dig a little deeper into the Common Core Standards. The issue of English language learners is addressed starting on page three. Basically, the Standards are the same for all students and special populations. Much is said about the Common Standards not being a curriculum and that special populations will need various methods and content to help them reach the same standards as all students. As far as I can tell at this time, there is not a separate list of ELD Standards. It appears we have another “one size fits all” effort. Here is the link to the Common Core Standards site: http://www.corestandards.org/Standards/K12/