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Helping
you make sense of schooling today
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July
2003 · Vol. 5 · Issue 3
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Parents have rights. That is the message - and guarantee - of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Even with the power of law behind them, however, it is incumbent on parents to seek out and demand their educational rights, especially when policy makers and bureaucrats stand in their way. To help parents do that, in this month's Parent Power! we present the first of a two part guide to No Child Left Behind and the parental rights it ensures.
Potentially as empowering as giving parents new choices is arming them with the knowledge that allows them to make informed choices. The second article in this month's issue is designed to do just that, offering insights into what have been scientifically proven to be the best curricula in reading, math and history, helping to make parents educated consumers when they are choose their child's school.
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Contributing
Editors
Neal McCluskey
From
StandardsWork, Inc.:
Leslye Arsht
Barbara Davidson
Meg Karchner
Published by
The Center for Education Reform
Jeanne Allen
President
1001
Connecticut Ave., NW
Suite 204
Washington, DC 20036
202-822-9000
800-521-2118
Fax: 202-822-5077
parentpower@edreform.com
www.edreform.com
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The
No Child Left Behind Act: New Choices for Parents
 Everyone, it seems, is talking about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the landmark federal education law that requires new accountability for states, schools, and districts, and gives new options to parents with children in failing schools. Unfortunately, a number of states are
complaining that the law is an "un-funded mandate." Some have even threatened not to comply, though doing so could mean foregoing millions of federal dollars. Worse, many schools and districts are attempting to have it both ways: they're taking the money, but balking at giving parents the rights to which they are entitled.
You Have Rights
In many cases, parents have a vague sense the law has powerful implications for their children, but aren't quite sure what to do. Their sense is right; the role of parents in No Child Left Behind is a truly historic departure from policies of the past. To begin with, the law demands new accountability and public sharing of data so parents can see how their schools are doing. Next, having armed parents with information about their schools, the law gives them new rights. The first right: to pull their children out of persistently failing schools and send them to public schools that work. The second: if they choose not to change schools, low-income children in failing schools are entitled to free supplemental services in math, reading, and/or English language arts.
Obstacles, though, are numerous. The greatest of these is an extreme confusion about the law's demands. Consequently, the law isn't being implemented as it should be. Some of this confusion is the result of widely acknowledged complexities in the law, and some stems from states and districts collecting too little data to assess in a timely manner which options need to be implemented. Unfortunately, though, a great many obstacles have no legitimate foundation, but have instead been erected by states and districts that don't want to be held accountable.
A Guide to Your Rights
No Child Left Behind says that if your child attends a school classified both as Title I (essentially, low-income), and as "needing improvement" for two years in a row, then your child is eligible - and the school system must help - to transfer to a higher performing public school in the district. If the school stays on the list for a third year, and your child receives Title I assistance, you are eligible for free supplemental services such as tutoring. In many cases, even though NCLB is only a year old, these trigger points have already been met using "needing improvement" ratings assigned under its predecessor, the Improving America's Schools Act. Unfortunately, the record of parents successfully exercising these options has been spotty at best.
What are the Problems?
- Parents don't know which schools officially "need improvement": NCLB specifies that before school opens in the fall states must have collected and analyzed test data from the previous year to determine which schools "need improvement." They then inform the districts, which must publish all sorts of data, foremost of which is the identity of failing schools and parents' transfer rights. This is a tight timetable, and until districts are able to get their data systems in sync with the reporting calendar (hopefully within the next year), information may not be publicized until midway into the fall. By that time, with school already in session, children and families will likely be loath to change, especially with districts using promises of new programs and resources to keep them at their failing school.
- "Choice" seems very limited: In many cases school systems are pairing lower-performing schools with higher performing ones in a way that limits which schools students might attend, often offering the minimum two alternatives. While part of the reason for doing this may be a lack of space in the schools parents are most likely to select, many parents are confronting situations where space issues are simply used as excuses to limit choice.
- Parents don't know how to access supplemental service providers (i.e. tutors): This right is less well-developed than choice because in most cases it would take effect a year later. For that reason it has proven to be confusing for both parents and policy makers. However, it works much the same way as choice: the district has the responsibility to notify eligible parents of their rights to these services, which kick-in when a school is identified as "needing improvement" for a third year. The state, for its part, is responsible for approving the service providers. Across the country, states are applying different standards for approval of supplemental service providers, and the most frequent complaint parents have (beyond, again, knowing of their right to the service) is not knowing which tutoring service is best for their child.
Continued
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Continued from previous
column
What You Can Do
Parents who are determined to access the alternatives the law provides for them should take individual action. Among their options are:
- Being proactive and relentless: Ask your district if there is any likelihood that your child's school will be on the "improvement" list and inform school officials during the summer of your desire to change schools. While the district might not yet have issued a final listing of all failing schools, they might know the answer to your question. If you think you might change schools, don't wait to be told about your eligibility -- go find out.
- Parents who ask for more choices might get them: Don't be shy about being the squeaky wheel. If your child's school is in its second "improvement" year and no choice solution can be found, request supplemental services. The law permits this, but only those who seek it out will likely get it.
- Follow your instinct: When choosing a supplemental service provider, trust your gut-instincts and word-of-mouth recommendations. You know your child's needs better than anyone else -- find the provider best suited to meeting them.
Look for our August issue for the second part of our two-part NCLB series, presenting a detailed guide to getting and selecting supplemental services.
Reading About What Works
It seems like the debate has raged since the beginning of time: phonics or whole language -- which one works best? Around which strategy should reading instruction be designed?
Perhaps, at long last, the question has been conclusively answered: systematic phonics, coupled with language activities and individual instruction, holds the key to effective reading education for the vast majority of beginning students. Three years ago this was the conclusion of Teaching Children to Read, a report released by the National Reading Panel (NRP). It is also the conclusion of the latest comprehensive analysis of reading research, Teaching Children to Read: The Fragile Link Between Science and Federal Education Policy. As its authors explain, "it is not surprising that the research shows a balance of phonics, tutoring, and language activities is best for teaching children to read."
Unfortunately, though the evidence of what works best for teaching reading has long existed, countless children have nonetheless been denied access to effective instruction, the victims of political struggles and pedagogical fads. The truth, simply, has been suppressed by educators wedded to fashionable ideas - like whole language, or math without times tables - which sounded nice as ideals, but had no scientifically grounded record of success. The good news: with passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and its requirement that reading curricula stem from "scientifically based research," a new emphasis has been placed on curricula that have been proven effective.
Best Bets
To help get the word out about effective curricula in reading and beyond, the Center for Education Reform has just released Best Bets: Education Curricula That Work, which shines a spotlight on some of the best available math, history, reading, and multi-subject curricula around. In addition, the compilation explores what make a curriculum great.
There are two common threads that run through all effective curricula, regardless of subject matter: rigor and substance. In math, as Best Bets makes clear, that means working "from the foundation up," teaching addition, subtraction multiplication and division in the early grades, all in a calculator-free environment. In history rigor and substance come from learning "dates, names and events" in a coherent historical context, and saving "critical thinking" for the later K-12 years, by which time students will have accumulated enough factual understanding to make informed historical analyses. Finally, in reading, what constitutes "rigor and substance" is exactly what Teaching Children to Read identifies: explicit phonics coupled with individual instruction and the reading of well-written literature.
Best Bets: Education Curricula That Work, in addition to spelling out the basic building blocks of effective curricula, provides descriptions, contact information and other details about numerous highly recommended curricula and their providers, as well as information about a few outstanding history textbooks. Best Bets is available
here on CER's web site.
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NCLB Terms to Know
 Title I: The first section of the Elementary and Secondary Elementary Act. Refers to programs aimed at America's most disadvantaged students. Provides assistance to improve the education of children in high-poverty schools, enabling those children to meet State academic content and performance standards. Title I reaches about 12.5 million students enrolled in both public and private schools.
Title I School:: If the number of low-income students is above 40 percent, the schools may use Title I funds to create a school-wide program to improve achievement, thereby serving all children in the school. If it is below 40 percent, the school must target its assistance to the lowest-achieving students.
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): The minimum level of improvement that states, school districts and schools must achieve each year. A target is set by each state in its original No Child Left Behind accountability plan with the federal government. It is the measure used to determine whether or not a school is considered "needing improvement."
"Needing Improvement": Schools that fail to make AYP for two consecutive years are labeled "needing improvement." The first year that a school receives this label the choice option (allowing school changes) kicks in. The second year that a school is labeled "needing improvement" supplemental services are added to the choice option. School districts are required to promptly inform parents if their child's school is in need of improvement. States are also required to publish a list of all schools in this category.
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