Additional Resources

What is ESEA (No Child Left Behind)?

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 is a law authorizing more than 40 programs that provide federal funds to nearly every school district in the nation.

ESEA was reauthorized in 1994 as the Improving America's Schools Act.  The law expired on September 30, 1999, but Congress failed to renew its programs.  Instead, the programs were extended through the appropriations process (which means they continued to receive the federal funds they needed to operate) until 2001.

ESEA was reauthorized in 2001 as the landmark No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB Act). The new law reflects a remarkable consensus - first articulated in President's George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind framework - on how to improve the performance of America's elementary and secondary schools while at the same time ensuring that no child is trapped in a failing school.

The NCLB Act incorporates the principles and strategies proposed by President Bush. These include increased accountability for States, school districts, and schools; greater choice for parents and students, particularly those attending low-performing schools; more flexibility for States and local educational agencies (LEAs) in the use of Federal education dollars; and a stronger emphasis on reading, especially for our youngest children.

National PTA Positions Regarding ESEA (No Child Left Behind)

National PTA supports many provisions of the ESEA, such as those that expand parent involvement policies, improve the targeting of resources to students and schools most in need, and increase the authorization of funds for ESEA programs.

National PTA is concerned the law relies too heavily on testing as the primary measure of accountability, without looking at other important indicators that help assess school performance, such as equity of resources, physical infrastructure, class size, instructional methods, and parent involvement. In addition, National PTA opposed the expansion of state and local block grant and transferability provisions, which could negatively impact accountability and program quality; and the consolidation of the class-size reduction program in the teacher-quality title.

In survey after survey parents rate their local schools highly. It is “those other schools” that have problems. I am going to be referring to those other schools of course.

As public education evolved in this country it by and large did a good job through the 1950’s. It educated a portion of our students very well and the rest it educated well enough to earn a good living in an economy where one could earn a living with a strong back or a strong mind.

In the 60’s things started to change thanks to technology the premium started to shift to strong minds. Today our country is far less a manufacturing country and much more a service country. The rewards now go to brain power.

Also, instead of a semi-isolated economy within our country it is now a world economy. If your son or daughter is graduating from Manchester High School the job competition won’t be from Glastonbury High or South Windsor but a high school in Osaka Japan or New Delhi India.

Our public education has not kept up. If it had there would be no federal legislation called No Child Left Behind.

The latest tension of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that became law in January 2002 gave us NCLB.

I am greatly encouraged that this law was passed. It means that enough people become concerned about the condition of public education in this country and caused the politicians to take notice.

This is not to say that the Act is near perfect. On the contrary, it needs many refinements and adjustments and they will come. We are already seeing some flexibility in certain areas.

No one can successfully argue that schools should not be held accountable for the job they do, nor that all of our nation’s students deserve on education. We all have a tendency to look at something from the standpoint of “what’s wrong with if” rather than asking what’s good about it.

I urge you to approach No Child Left Behind asking what’s good about it. It is an act written for you as parents and your children as students. It will hold those responsible for educating your children accountable.

You will be given detailed data regarding your child’s progress and give you options if your school is failing your child. Use this legislation to help your child receive the best education possible.

I caution you to not jump on any bandwagons until you know who is driving the tractor that pulls the wagon. There are some who will pander to you to get you to pick up their flag and carry it. This bill is about accountability and some folks just don’t want to be accountable.

They will try to enlist you by talking about testing and how detrimental that can be to children. Life is a daily test.

They may say that they need to stop everything for weeks to cram for the tests. I am familiar with successful schools across the nation and not one of them stops and crams.
In all that they do, all the time, they are adhering to their curriculum. Their students are always ready and always evaluated to insure that each student is learning.

If your teachers or administrations need to stop and cram you need to make some changes.

Some will use the phrase “teaching to test” I say if it’s the right test isn’t that great. In Connecticut the state tells the districts what the students need to know- curriculum is developed locally and our mastery and proficiency tests give detailed feedback on each student so that you the parents and the teachers know each students strengths and weaknesses.

Many of you here, like I have taken a CPR course. Remember the practical test and the written test at the end? How would we have done if not taught to the test which in turn was a test of what we needed to know to be successful?

Some say that of all the academic requirements take the richness out of the curriculum, whatever that means. A school board member from eastern CT told me they had no time to go on field trips. Do you know what the good schools do? They go on the field tip and come back and write about it. Writing, the single most important skill.

I can unequivocally assure you that within our state and all the states many of us are working hard to have the necessary change made to NCLB. Use NCLB to get the best education possible for your children. We will do the rest.

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Impact of NCLB unfolds; concern mounts; CEA TV campaign launched

Parents and taxpayers need to make their voices heard

HARTFORD, Jan. 14, 2004 – As confusion and concern sweep Connecticut over the labeling of more than one-half of the school districts in the state as deficient, the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) announced today it is launching a public awareness TV campaign to urge state residents to become advocates for amending the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.

One ad uses visuals of the 1,080-page law to emphasize the testing and bureaucratic burden NCLB is placing on school districts and to stress the failure of the federal government to provide anywhere near adequate funding to carry out the law’s mandates. The spot points out that NCLB is narrowing the traditional curriculum in schools by squeezing out important subjects like social studies, art and music. “Let’s shut the book on unfunded federal mandates,” the TV spot urges.

The second spot puts a human face on concerns about some of the rigid requirements of the law. Nearly 100 public school students participated in the filming of the spot whose message reinforces the common sense that the NCLB’s “one size fits all” approach to measuring achievement is not only unrealistic, but armful to many children. Every child can learn, but educators and parents know that every child does not learn at the same rate or in the same way. Under the law if even one subgroup of children doesn’t meet the proficiency requirement, the entire school and/or school district is labeled as deficient.

In announcing that the TV spots will be aired on all major Connecticut channels through the winter and early spring, CEA President Rosemary Coyle emphasized the importance of parents and taxpayers making their voices heard about the dangers of the law as it now stands. According to Coyle, it is essential that the law’s radical provisions be amended.

The designation of Connecticut schools and districts as underperformers despite all the evidence to the contrary, said Coyle, puts them on a slippery slope. If they fail to satisfy the bureaucrats in Washington during the years ahead, they will be subject to escalating penalties that could result in the closure of neighborhood schools or force parents to place their children in overcrowded far from their homes.

“If nothing is done, the NCLB mandates will create a situation where many schools could be closed in the not so distant future,” said Coyle. “To prevent that from happening, voters must force Congress to make changes in the law. This is what democracy is all about. Our television spots direct viewers to our CEA website and urge them to sign the petition we are circulating for revision of NCLB.”

The CEA leader noted that the federal claim that 99 Connecticut districts – more than half the districts in a state that is known nationally for the excellence of its public schools – are underperforming is enough in itself to make sensible people wonder about the soundness of the new federal law. What makes them wonder even more, she said, are the reasons why some of the schools and districts have been singled out.

The small eastern Connecticut town of Lisbon, for example, has no high school, but sends students in the upper grades to high schools in nearby communities. Yet, the entire Lisbon school district was declared underperforming because the participation rates of Lisbon 10th graders on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test at those out-of-town schools did not meet the federal requirement of 95 percent participation.

King Philip Middle School in West Hartford was designated as underperforming for an equally absurd reason. Even though the student body as a whole and other subgroups at the school passed the standardized test with flying colors, the school found itself on the federal list because one small group of pupils – eighth-grade special education students – fell below federal proficiency standards in one subject, mathematics.

“We are putting significant resources into improving the NCLB law because we believe this is a defining issue for public education,” said Coyle. “Are we going to allow irresponsible micro-management by federal bureaucrats far removed from our communities to create havoc with our schools and children? Or are we going to insist that the federal government become a real partner in helping our state, local school districts, educators and parents meet the individual needs of every student? Before federal bureaucrats in Washington create more havoc, needed changes must be made to the law,” Coyle concluded.

CONTACT: Kathy Frega at 860-525-5641

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An Open Letter Regarding NCLB
Rosemary Coyle, President, CEA

While there are some things to admire in the federal government’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, there also is much that needs to be amended. One troubling aspect of the legislation is that it forces every child, every teacher, every class and every school into a rigid kind of education with the standardized test the sole measure of performance.

Recently, at a NCLB seminar sponsored by the PTA, a state Department of Education official explained, for example, that if the standardized reading test required by NCLB is scheduled for a particular day, then a child who has just arrived at a school in Connecticut from a foreign country the previous day, week or month is still required to take that test and have his or her score counted in that school’s performance profile even if he or she speaks no English at all. About the best educators could hope to do, the state official said, was to lessen the humiliation for children in those circumstances by putting the test in front of them, asking if they understand English, then excusing them to the library or their homeroom rather than making them stare at the test for 90 minutes.

Some might argue that this is an extreme and most unusual case. Yet I think we have to assume that if a state education official feels it necessary to mention it at a seminar on NCLB sponsored by the PTA, then it is an actual case that is arising and must be dealt with as we get involved more and more in NCLB requirements. Few cases may be this flagrant, but anyone who spends time in our schools knows that there are dozens of other instances where attempting to measure everything by the single yardstick of a standardized test is threatening to the welfare of numerous children.

What happens to the child who is bright, motivated, and an achiever in every sense of the word, but is anxious and does poorly on tests? What happens to the child who enters school with only a quarter of the vocabulary of other children his or her age? What happens to the child with great artistic or mechanical potential, but precious little aptitude for writing?

Are these children to be devalued under a system that demands one thing and one thing only: proficiency on a single high-stakes test? Are their parents to be told that if these boys and girls are not learning to master the test at their neighborhood school, then they can be transferred to another school 10 or 20 miles away? If they are uprooted and transferred, what will have been accomplished if they still cannot master the test in the new school? If a teacher or a school cannot find some way to make these students into expert test takers, then will the teachers be replaced and the school closed? And if it comes to that, then what will the children and the parents do?

NCLB offers what seems to be a quick formula to make everyone perform, but it has no answers for real-world questions like these. It advocates a wham-bam philosophy of education: Apply one test across the board and by the year 2014, 100 percent of our children will become test performers.

As those closest to children and schools, we parents and teachers know the reality. There are no quick answers for the demanding and painstaking process of moving a wide variety of students forward at a pace in which each can thrive. What is essential, above all else, is an individualized approach that helps each child effectively realize and develop his or her potential.

Because we understand these realities, parents and teachers must stand together as partners to resist the naïve philosophy that we can solve whatever ails our public schools by ordering everyone to pass a test and by penalizing those who don’t by moving them here and there and shutting down their schools.

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Senator Wyden Proposes Amendment to Improve NCLB

On March 2, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo unveiled a five-point proposal for improving the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. The proposal is synthesized from the concerns and suggestions of parents, teachers, schools, and community leaders. The proposal will be sent directly to the U.S. Department of Education, which has the power to make changes to the law administratively. If the Department of Education fails to act, Wyden will introduce legislation in Congress to change the law. Areas that Wyden and Castillo have targeted for improvement include fairness in student testing and school ratings, teacher recruitment and retention, and parental involvement.

The Wyden/Castillo proposal simplifies NCLB's scoring system that reflects a school's successes and problems. Schools that do not meet target scores in specific areas would still be identified, but as "in need of improvement."

The proposal would also provide rural schools with additional flexibility in meeting teacher qualifications and school choice requirements for the development of a comprehensive, coordinated strategy to promote teacher recruitment and retention in poor and rural schools, for funding the Parent Information and Resource Centers, and for the creation of parent training workshops to help families take full advantage of the choices and services allowed by the law.

Additionally, schools and districts would not be penalized if they subtract students from test participation totals when the students' parents or guardians opt out of the testing.

Finally, the Wyden/Castillo proposal would adopt a number of provisions to encourage schools to test English-language-learning (ELL) students in their native languages, or to use English-language proficiency tests that would hold the schools accountable for helping these students learn English in their first three years in school. ELL teachers would receive greater flexibility in meeting teacher qualification standards that require proficiency in every subject the teacher teaches. School districts would also receive incentives to provide necessary supplemental services to ELL students.

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