AASA Federal Advocacy Update Bruce Hunter & Sasha Bartolf National Conference on Education Denver, CO February 17, 2011

Optimism About finishing ESEA! John Kline shares our concern for local control and thinks that funding IDEA is the best thing the federal government can do for public education Divided control of the House and Senate - opportunity to Reformers iron lock on legislative proposals is broken

Not so fast, my friend Many new Members of Congress want: – Deep budget cuts, $100 billion promised - will be less the debt ceiling vote – Vouchers – Eliminate the Department of Education Chairman Kline wants IDEA funding to be discretionary

Possible Timeline for ESEA Out of Senate HELP committee by Easter Through the Senate by June To the President by August – Bethany Little, Chief Education staffer, Senate HELP Committee At least most important parts of ESEA this year – James Bergeron, Chief Education staffer, House Education and Workforce Committee

Title I of ESEA Purpose? Original – supplement local efforts to improve outcomes for low income students NCLB – Control over accountability, assessment, teacher qualifications, and punishments to: – Shed light on achievement in general and the achievement gaps – Drive change through punishment and negative publicity about results ESEA ??

Title I of ESEA $$ Provides the most federal $$ to schools $$ Definitions control eligibility for ESEA $$ Accountability controls state testing, reporting & punishments Teacher requirements control hiring, reporting professional development and punishments Rules determine administrative costs for ESEA

Hottest ESEA issue for the 112 th Teachers Compensating teachers – Experience & Degrees – Student outcomes/effectiveness Evaluating teachers primarily by test scores Balancing teacher quality – Across all schools – By per pupil costs Eliminating seniority for assignment Alternative certification – Special education – Rural isolated districts

Hottest ESEA issue for the 112 th Teachers – Why? Educational Reasons Importance of teachers for improving student outcomes Political Reasons Reduce the power on unions over local policy Reduce the power of unions over state and national policy and politics

Hot ESEA issue for the 112 th Accountability & Assessment ESEA 2011 – Higher standards – Measuring growth is the goal – how? – Better assessment(s) – how? – Emphasis on critical thinking and application of knowledge is a goal – Maybe multiple measures or sources of evidence

Targeting the bottom 5% Administration proposes that districts will have to choose one of four possible interventions. – Turnaround – Restart – School Closure – Transformation Is this the right target for Title I and the rest of ESEA? Do these the models predict the greatest success?

AASA on ESEA Our Heaviest Lifts 1.Limit the federal oversight to children served with federal funds – in the case of school wide programs – schools served by Title I funds 2.Separate Accountability and Assessment for learning – Accountability assessments focus on growth (value added if desired) by sampling & including multiple measures – Instructional assessment includes a variety of methods of measuring growth, formative, adaptive, embedded teacher developed, etc., that provide immediate feedback to teachers and administrators

Other Hot Issues Standardizing public education – Per pupil expenditures/Comparability – Teacher contracts – Standards/curriculum – Personnel decisions – Instructional strategies – Instructional methods

Other policy initiatives within ESEA Re-Authorization Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) Re-Authorization Language to require LEAs to improve educational stability for children in foster care

REAP Re-Authorization Bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA)/Kristi Noem (R-SD), and Sen. Kent Conrad (R-ND)/ Susan Collins (R-ME) to be re-introduced very soon Bill contains the following changes – Transition to new locale codes – Allow districts to choose between RLIS and SRSA funding – Switch the eligibility poverty measure – Shift in the sliding formula from $20,000 to $25,000 and $60,000 to $80,000.

Beefing up the Rural Education Caucuses Find out if your representatives are on the House and Senate Rural Education Caucus Key to countering Chicago-centric Department perspective Fighting competitive grants

Foster Care It all started with the Fostering Connections Act of 2008… The old players: Senate Finance Committee The new players: Senate HELP Committee The good guys: AASA, Council of Great City Schools The bad guys: The American Bar Association, The Children’s Defense Fund

What they are claiming Schools don’t want to help foster kids Schools don’t work well with Child Welfare agencies Unless schools are legally required to help kids and work with child welfare agencies, schools won’t do anything to help children in foster care

What we are saying Thanks for never telling us about Fostering Connections and then blaming us for not acting on its provisions Most districts have great relationships with folks at HHS There’s no reason for a new bill when we don’t even know the old one exists

Fantasy vs. reality What they want most Language in ESEA that requires schools to pay for transportation for foster care kids and immediately enroll them before we have education records and keep them at their school of origin if that’s what’s best for the kids regardless of transportation difficulties and costs that may arise as a result What they could get Legislation in ESEA that requires states to create a plan that is consistent with Fostering Connections; Secretaries of both agencies must approve plans; failure to compromise leaves $ decision to Governor

What is going to happen Our GOP allies will not support any new bill or bill language; they understand schools did not know about Fostering Connections and want to provide training and support for schools to learn about this bill and its requirements If in two years time, child welfare groups can claim schools aren’t improving education stability for children in foster care, we could have to support a large bill with lots of regulations regarding enrollment, liasions, etc. that exempts us from paying for foster kid transportation. (This bill is already written and is called “Fostering Success in Education”)

NO MATTER WHAT We cannot leave it to the states to decide which agency pays for transportation. We run the risk of governors requiring schools to provide McKinney Vento transportation services (this is already a case in West Virginia) for children in foster care. Funding to provide transportation is not guaranteed nor likely.

Funding IDEA Bill to fully fund IDEA John Kline – our hero? CR cuts $557.7 million Obama increases 200 million Blended Funding Stream?

Child Nutrition Legislation passed during Lame Duck Session in December cent increase in reimbursement in 2013 Required staff development Required certification of directors New standards for food quality Fines for non compliance Secretary to issue guidance limiting indirect rates Feds set the price for paid lunches

E-Rate Opportunities for changes to program: Re-authorization of the Telecommunications Act Remove 2.25 billion cap on E-Rate funding Permanent exemption from the ADA for E-Rate

Vouchers Bill to expand and re-authorize the D.C. voucher program was introduced by Speaker Boehner and Sen. Joe Lieberman in January House Education Committee held hearing last week where vouchers were prominently discussed Senate Armed Services report on whether a national voucher program is needed for special-education students in military families

What we have going for us National Coalition for Public Education is working 24/7 to fight these vouchers; coalition includes education, civil rights and religious groups who have ties to many members Tight fiscal environment; hard to push for any new or expanded programs The Senate is still Democratically controlled; they voted twice to re-authorize the voucher program last session and it failed both times

Medicaid Anticipate regulatory changes to parental consent requirement Option 1: Rescind consent requirement entirely Option 2: Require consent to be given only a time of enrollment and require schools to notify parents that they are seeking reimbursement each year

Criminal Background Checks Legislation would require LEAs to perform the following checks periodically on all school employees: A search of the State criminal registry or repository in the State in which the school employee resides and each State in which such school employee previously resided; A search of State-based child abuse and neglect registries and databases in the State in which the school employee resides and each State in which such school employee previously resided; A search of the National Crime Information Center of the Department of Justice; A search of Federal Bureau of Investigation fingerprint check system using the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System; and A search of the National Sex Offender Registry established under section 19 of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C )

Questions? Concerns? Bruce Hunter Sasha Bartolf