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NCLB State Legislative Resource Center
Welcome to Communities for Quality Education's (CQE) State Legislative Resource Center, a one-stop online resource for legislators to learn the very latest on critical education issues facing states. CQE's website provides legislators with the most comprehensive overview of actions being taken in states to address the flaws of the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB), an overview on efforts to fix the law in Congress, and vital information for state policymakers working to advance a quality public schools agenda. CQE recently hosted the first-ever Legislator Education Summit in San Diego. Click here to learn more about this successful meeting of leading legislators and the nation's leading education policy experts and opinion leaders. Spotlight On
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Harvard Civil Rights Project on NAEP Scores 
State and Federal Updates
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NCLB Update 3/15/06
Articles of Interest States Chafe Under Tougher ED Enforcement A little over a year ago, new U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings helped thaw chilly relationships with state officials by announcing a “New Path for No Child Left Behind.” The watchword was “flexibility,” and for states that adhered to the “bright lines” of the law, there was promised relief in the form of growth models rewarding incremental success, as well as provisions mitigating the disproportionate accountability effects of the low performance of two student populations, those with disabilities and limited English proficiency. So what happened? Amid strong criticism from opposing interest groups, a regulation designed to ease testing requirements for students with disabilities has yet to be finalized – more than a year after it was proposed. A pilot project to test the effects of growth models on the law’s accountability system yielded just two successful proposals for the upcoming school year. And promised flexibility for limited English proficiency (LEP) students has mysteriously never materialized. Arizona sues feds over No Child Left Behind scoring for schools Arizona is suing the federal government to be allowed to continue giving schools a three-year delay before English-language learning students' test scores must be counted in a key accountability measure used by the federal No Child Left Behind program. The U.S. Department of Education agreed in 2003 to the three-year allowance in determining whether schools had made adequate progress in academic achievement but since has reneged and insisted on counting ELL students' test scores after only one year, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said Thursday. Under Assessment Plan, States Could Lose Funds to Districts As many as 30 states stand to lose a large chunk of their Title I administrative funds and have them diverted directly to local school districts, under a bold Education Department (ED) plan to ensure that testing systems meet federal requirements. Raising the stakes in the dispute over education in Baltimore, the Bush administration is warning that $171 million in federal [NCLB] aid to Maryland could be in jeopardy if the General Assembly blocks a state attempt to take over 11 failing city schools. Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it. |
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