CRS Issue Statement on Elementary and Secondary Education

CRS Issue Statement on Elementary and Secondary Education

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CRS Issue Statement on Elementary and
Secondary Education
Rebecca R. Skinner, Coordinator
Specialist in Education Policy
January 12, 2010
Congressional Research Service
7-5700
www.crs.gov
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CRS Issue Statement on Elementary and Secondary Education

he primary issue of concern to the Congress in elementary and secondary education is how
to improve the effectiveness of the nation’s schools in raising the achievement level of all
T students, particularly those who are disadvantaged by living in areas of concentrated
poverty, or have disabilities or limited proficiency in the English language, or are Indians, Native
Hawaiians, or Alaska Natives. The low levels of proficiency attained by many of these students is
often associated with social and economic problems ranging from an ongoing cycle of poverty in
some communities to diminished international economic competitiveness for the nation.
The federal government has employed a variety of strategies to support the education of
elementary and secondary students in the United States. These include compensatory education
programs, in which federal funding is provided to support the education of disadvantaged
students; civil rights statutes, which prohibit discrimination among students according to criteria
such as race, color, national origin, or sex, and which require that a free appropriate public
education be made available to students with disabilities; standards-based reforms, under which
recipients of federal education funding are required to implement challenging educational
standards and assessments; and market-based reforms, which permit parents to signal their
educational preferences by choosing their children’s schools with the expectation that competition
in the educational marketplace will be an impetus for broader school improvement.
The federal government plays an increasingly influential role in the nation’s public elementary
and secondary education system. While the federal contribution to total public K-12 education
revenues is only about 9%, most of these funds are targeted on relatively high need localities and
schools, where the federal share is often much greater than this average. The No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; P.L. 107-110), that amended the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA), requires all public schools in states participating in the largest ESEA
program (Education for the Disadvantaged – Title I, Part A) to meet a wide range of
accountability requirements in areas such as assessments, adequate yearly progress (AYP)
standards, consequences for schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) failing to meet AYP
standards, teacher and paraprofessional qualifications, and reporting to parents and the public.
The authorization for appropriations for ESEA programs expired at the end of FY2008 and
consideration of ESEA reauthorization legislation is likely to be the primary means by which the
111th Congress will address concerns about the quality of elementary and secondary education.
Accompanying the many requirements of the ESEA are a number of aid programs providing
approximately $25 billion per year to states and LEAs. While total ESEA funding rose
significantly in the period immediately following adoption of the NCLB, there have been debates
over a large gap between the authorized and appropriated level of funding, and over how these
funds are distributed among states and LEAs. The largest ESEA programs provide aid for the
education of disadvantaged students attending relatively high poverty schools, support the hiring
and professional development of teachers, finance services for the education of limited English
proficient students, support more specific activities such as after-school services for students, and
provide aid to LEAs educating large numbers of federally connected students (such as children in
military families). Overall, federal funding for elementary and secondary education programs
administered by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), including ESEA, the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and career and technical education, is approximately $39
billion per year.
In considering elementary and secondary education legislation, Congress has been examining
how such legislation will interact with and impact on another large federal program serving
mainly elementary and secondary school children—the Individuals with Disabilities Education
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CRS Issue Statement on Elementary and Secondary Education

Act. The most recent IDEA reauthorization legislation (P.L. 108-446) interrelates significant
IDEA requirements with requirements under ESEA as amended by the NCLB. For example, P.L.
108-446 includes specific provisions for how special education teachers meet ESEA highly
qualified teacher requirements. In addition, ED has issued ESEA regulations that modify rules for
determining AYP for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities and for other IDEA-
eligible students with “persistent academic difficulties.”
Congress has also increasingly become concerned about the role of early childhood education and
care in raising academic achievement and other desired student outcomes. Research has indicated
the importance of quality early childhood education and care, particularly for disadvantaged
students, in improving cognitive functioning, school readiness, and social behavior. As part of
ESEA reauthorization, Congress may consider how the federal government might encourage and
provide assistance to states in their efforts to improve the quality of early childhood education
and care, enhance professional development, establish statewide standards for early childhood
programs, implement data tracking systems to make program accountability and monitoring more
feasible, and increase collaboration and coordination among all early childhood services in the
states or in each state.
The specific major federal legislative issues in elementary and secondary education surround the
substance, impact, and implementation of major ESEA requirements regarding staff
qualifications, performance reporting, standards, assessments, AYP determinations, and corrective
actions that are to be applied to schools and LEAs that fail to meet AYP requirements for two or
more consecutive years, as well as program funding and the intersection between ESEA and
IDEA. There is substantial debate over the appropriateness and effectiveness of the current
federal strategy emphasizing test-based accountability, with assistance and a variety of sanctions
targeted on public schools and LEAs that fail to meet performance standards. Questions likely to
be addressed by the Congress are grouped below by major issue area.
Accountability Issues
• Are adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements appropriately focused on
improving education for disadvantaged student groups and identifying low-
performing schools? Are they appropriately focused on LEP/ELL students and
students with disabilities? Should the 2014 goal of universal proficiency
embodied in these requirements be modified?
• Have the program improvement, corrective actions, and restructuring
requirements specified under the ESEA for schools and LEAs that fail to meet
AYP standards for two consecutive years or more been effectively implemented,
and have they significantly improved achievement levels among students in the
affected schools? Is there much consistency in the corrective actions undertaken
across LEAs? Should federal accountability efforts continue to rely on sanctions
as the primary motivating factor for improving student achievement, or should
there be greater emphasis on technical and other assistance to schools where
performance is deemed to be inadequate? Should there be expanded
differentiation of consequences for schools and LEAs that fail to make AYP to
varying degrees and for different population groups?
• Should the ultimate goal of having all students be proficient in reading and
mathematics by the end of the 2013-2014 school year be revisited? To what
extent has the achievement gap among students of different races/ethnicities,
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income levels, English language proficiency, and disability status been reduced
since the enactment of NCLB? What are the consequences of having an
increasing number of schools each year being identified for improvement or
advancing along the outcome accountability continuum?
• What has been the impact of the substantial expansion of standards-based
assessments of student achievement required under the ESEA, and should these
requirements be expanded further to include additional subjects and/or grade
levels?
• What is the current status of assessments being used for AYP purposes? How
have states modified those assessments over time? What do we know about the
costs of developing assessments? What have been the problems with developing
assessments (e.g., determining reliability and validity)? What are the specific
assessment issues related to students with disabilities and ELLs? Is there a
different role for NAEP in these discussions?
• Should test-based accountability continue to be the primary reform strategy of
the ESEA; what have been the systemic effects of this approach; and should a
broader range of outcome measures (“multiple measures”) be used to judge the
performance of public schools and LEAs? Can federal efforts to raise aggregate
achievement levels and reduce achievement gaps among student groups be
effective if they continue to focus on schools alone, or should the focus be
broadened to include efforts to improve the health, housing, and personal security
status of disadvantaged children and youth, as well as educational resource equity
and adequacy?
• Included in the ARRA was a new program, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
(SFSF). The SFSF provided substantial federal funding to assist states in
maintaining funding for elementary and secondary education and public
institutions of higher education. The program also provided an unprecedented
level of funding for the Secretary of Education to award competitive grants
through the Race to the Top (RTTT) competition and the Investing in Innovation
(i3) program. Priorities for these programs, as well as for the second round of the
SFSF state grants, are being viewed as potential indicators of the
Administration’s ESEA reauthorization proposal. How do these priorities differ
from current requirements under the ESEA? Are the priorities at odds with what
is currently required? In what ways is the Administration breaking new ground
with respect to federal education policy?
• Nationwide, there is renewed interest in developing college- and career-readiness
standards, common standards in reading and mathematics, and associated
assessments. Formally, these efforts are being led by the National Governors’
Association and the Chief Council of School State Officers, not the federal
government. However, the Secretary has announced that $350 million of the
$4.35 billion available for RTTT grants will be set aside for a separate
competition to support states in developing the next generation of assessments.
How do the efforts to develop common standards and assessments fit with
current actions being taken by ED? What role could they play in ESEA
reauthorization? Should incentives be offered to states to adopt common
standards and assessments, and to what extent should adoption and
implementation be voluntary?
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• Given the increased interest in growth models and linking teacher performance to
student performance, what are the current data capabilities of states to address
these issues? What has the federal government funded under the Statewide Data
Systems program, and how have states used these funds? How do the
requirements accompanying additional funds that were provided for these
purposes in the ARRA differ from what has been required in the past?
Teacher and School Leader Issues
• What has been the impact of the requirement that virtually all public school
teachers, and many paraprofessionals, be Ahighly qualified@? To what extent have
ESEA Title II-A funds been used to improve teacher quality through enhanced
recruitment of new teachers and effective professional development of existing
teachers? Are highly qualified teachers equitably distributed across schools and
LEAs?
• What should be the next phase of efforts to improve teacher quality and
effectiveness? Should the NCLB address teacher compensation issues or
alternative routes to teacher certification? Should a Ahighly effective teacher@
requirement be considered during ESEA reauthorization, especially in light of the
RTTT requirements?
• Although Title II-A is supposed to support the training and recruitment of both
teachers and principals, evidence suggests that LEAs direct little of this support
toward improving principal quality. Meanwhile, a growing body of research finds
that effective school leadership is a critical component of successful school
reform, effective teaching, and, ultimately, student performance. Should current
provisions in Title II-A be amended to ensure greater support for the development
of principal quality? Are there other provisions in ESEA (e.g., accountability
requirements) that could be leveraged to improve school leadership?
• Title II of the ESEA constitutes the major federal effort to improve the quality of
P-12 teaching; however, Title II of the Higher Education Act (HEA) is also
designed for this purpose. The activities supported by the HEA have historically
addressed pre-service training, while the ESEA has attended to in-service
training. Authority for HEA Title II-A expires in FY2011 (unlike most other
programs in the HEA, which are authorized through FY2014), thus providing an
opportunity to jointly reauthorize both aspects of the federal effort in this area.
Should efforts be made to better coordinate these provisions? How might the
ESEA be amended to strengthen the partnerships between LEAs and teacher
training programs that are required under the HEA?
Other Issues
• The issue of high school reform has received substantial attention in the last
couple of years with respect to stemming the dropout rate, increasing graduation
rates, reconsidering how the last one or two years of high school are structured,
and forging stronger ties between high schools and postsecondary education and
employment, as well as strengthening the cohesiveness of education from PK
through college. Should changes be made to the Title I, Part A formula to
increase funding for high schools, especially low-performing high schools?
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CRS Issue Statement on Elementary and Secondary Education

Should specific high school reform provisions (e.g., career and technical
education programs, dual enrollment, and PK-16/PK-20 coordination strategies)
be incorporated into the ESEA?
• Do the current ESEA requirements represent an “unfunded mandate”? Should
programs have authorized funding levels specified for fiscal years beyond the
initial fiscal year of authorization when ESEA is reauthorized? Were the
authorized funding levels in NCLB met? Should additional federal education
funding be provided to assist states and LEAs when a national economic crisis
reduces resource availability at the state and local levels?
• As more states add preschool, pre-kindergarten, and full-day kindergarten
programs, should the role of the ESEA in supporting state preschool and pre-
kindergarten programs be expanded? In particular, how might an expanded
federal role in early childhood education under the ESEA provide incentives and
support to states to improve the quality, standards, and outcomes of these
programs?
• To what extent are ESEA and IDEA aligned, and does this alignment need to be
reconsidered? Are there competing priorities in ESEA and IDEA that create
barriers to effectively serving students with disabilities?

Issue Team Members

Rebecca R. Skinner, Coordinator
Ann Lordeman
Specialist in Education Policy
Specialist in Social Policy
rskinner@crs.loc.gov, 7-6600
alordeman@crs.loc.gov, 7-2323
Erin D. Caffrey
Karen E. Lynch
Analyst in Education Policy
Analyst in Social Policy
ecaffrey@crs.loc.gov, 7-9447
klynch@crs.loc.gov, 7-6899
Cassandria Dortch
Steven Maguire
Analyst in Education Policy
Specialist in Public Finance
cdortch@crs.loc.gov, 7-0376
smaguire@crs.loc.gov, 7-7841
Jody Feder
Gail McCallion
Legislative Attorney
Specialist in Social Policy
jfeder@crs.loc.gov, 7-8088
gmccallion@crs.loc.gov, 7-7758
Nancy Lee Jones
Laura L. Monagle
Legislative Attorney
Information Research Specialist
njones@crs.loc.gov, 7-6976
lmonagle@crs.loc.gov, 7-7351
Jeffrey J. Kuenzi
Carol J. Toland
Specialist in Education Policy
Legislative Attorney
jkuenzi@crs.loc.gov, 7-8645
ctoland@crs.loc.gov, 7-4659
Shannon S. Loane
Roger Walke
Information Research Specialist
Specialist in American Indian Policy
sloane@crs.loc.gov, 7-6223
rwalke@crs.loc.gov, 7-8641

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