ESEA Reauthorization: Everyone's cards are on the table. Now let's make a deal.

It has been ten years since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This law ensures that all children have an equal access to a quality education no matter their background. However, there is broad agreement that the law is now outdated and is restraining schools from making the kinds of improvements needed to benefit students, communities and the economy. 

Rewriting the outdated No Child Left Behind law will only happen through bipartisan consensus that serves the interests of all the nation’s children. Unfortunately, Education Committee Republicans recently released two highly partisan draft pieces of legislation in place of a whole-scale rewrite of NCLB that do not live up to our nation’s commitment to all of our children. This move likely means that the rewrite of the law won’t happen this year and millions of schoolchildren will have to remain under the current broken system.

In response, Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the Committee said that “the draft language abandons students, parents, and taxpayers alike by failing to hold school systems accountable for improving student achievement.  It walks away from the broad consensus reached throughout the country that our schools must prepare students to graduate college-ready and career-ready.  It undermines programs for our most vulnerable students, shirking the civil rights responsibilities of the federal government.  It eliminates critical programs and funding that promote a balanced education such as those that create a well-rounded curriculum or wrap-around services for students.  Additionally, the Kline draft removes critical assurances to taxpayers that states and districts maintain education funding."

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is also unhappy with both the substance and the process. "I appreciate the effort, but this bill retreats from reform, accountability and bipartisanship," he said. "We need to set politics aside and put kids first. Until Congress can pass a real bi-partisan reform bill that the president can sign, we'll be moving forward with our ESEA flexibility package because America can't wait."

And Sen.Tom Harkin (D-IA), the chairman of the Senate Education Committee and the author of that chamber's bill, also lamented that the bill only has Republican support. "I am disappointed that he [Rep. Kline] has abandoned the longstanding tradition of bipartisanship when it comes to the education of our kids," he said.

Likewise, teacher, civil rights, disability, business, education reform, and other advocacy organizations are coming out against these proposals that will undercut gains made by our nation’s children over the last decade:

The Center for American Progress criticizes the bills for doing "more harm than good by returning almost all control of education to the local level. They would jeopardize important civil rights protections for disadvantaged students, reduce accountability for the use of taxpayer dollars, and promote partisan ideas that make it less likely NCLB actually gets reauthorized soon."

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia observed that "bipartisan gains for the nation's high schools made under the Bush and Obama administrations would be threatened or lost under the House committee's proposal." For example, under these draft proposals, "the federal requirement for high school graduation rate accountability would be eliminated," and these drafts do not "call for necessary college- and career-ready standards and could limit the ability of the U.S. Department of Education to support the state-led effort to implement common assessments aligned with these standards."

The New America Foundation noticed a few "surprising omissions" from the Republican draft bills, which "generally lessen the federal role in state and local K-12 education, particularly as it pertains to accountability and standards, putting more authority in states’ hands." These drafts show what the GOP has "in mind for a future federal role in K-12 education: far fewer fiscal and accountability requirements for state and local school districts masquerading as flexibility and local control." Furthermore, New America sees reauthorization as unlikely unless it's bipartisan, and unless more lawmakers "start thinking about education as a coherent system from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade if they want to ensure more children are ready for kindergarten, reading by the end of third grade and on the path to graduate from high school ready for college and career.”

According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, these bills "represent a full retreat from accountability for students with disabilities and other disadvantaged children...[because they] fail to focus on closing the destructive achievement gaps that impacts" these students.

Education Sector warns that the proposals "could mean that far fewer schools – especially low-performing high schools that are less likely to be designated as Title I schools – are part of state school improvement efforts. Alyson Klein, reporting for Education Week, writes that the draft bills would "significantly scale back the federal role in K-12 schools and go further than any other proposal yet to dismantle the accountability tenets at the heart of" NCLB.

"I think this is a stage prop rather than a real legislative effort," said Charles Barone, the director of federal legislation for Democrats for Education Reform. "They're just doing this to say they did something." Under the bill, accountability would be "pretty much anything goes," he said. "It's just a bunch of vague language."