The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the law formally known as NCLB) is up for renewal.

Finally.

It will be great to see how we craft a new bill to propel us into the 21st century with an innovative, capable, and confident young population. One thing is missing from the bill already and hopefully we have learned from the last iteration of the ESEA that unless we as a nation say something, we will lose out. I found myself asking in 2002, “Where did NCLB come from and why didn’t anyone see it coming?” The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 passed, according to Govtrack.us: 384 yes to 45 no in the House of Representatives (34 of those nays were Republicans), and in the Senate with 91 yes and 8 nays (6 of which were Republicans). It was a landslide because it was a politically useful bill to representatives and senators. Besides, no one would want to be “The congressman who wanted to leave kids behind” Now we are left with a law that is too helpful to get rid of, because it causes some states to improve service to sub-groups, calls for challenging state standards, and tests those standards. And, a law that is so big and has so many unintended consequences that it can not remain intact. Some reasons for changing the law include a weakening of some states’ assessment and accountability systems and a lowering of standards in some states. Finally, it has distracted some policy makers from the actual goal of the law, to help kids, by raising authority issues and power struggles between the U.S. Department of Education and the states.

Many people were angry and confused when the law was enacted and they realized what the bill was really about. Of course it called for high standards for all students but it also enacted penalties if states, local school systems, and schools did not meet those standards and did not fund the additional testing necessary to create better learning. It also provides significant funding to programs that reach our most at risk students. In fact that was one of the original goals of the law.

In pre-k policy circles it is common knowledge that states that have incorporated pre-k into the state funding formula have generally strong programs with out the yearly threat of losing funding due to political winds. Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin – and the District of Columbia include pre-k as part of their school funding formulas. Of these states Maryland was ranked number 1 in in Ed Week’s Quality Counts report for the past two years. Isn’t it time that pre-k became as important to a quality education as later grades? It has been proven that when pre-k is high quality it significantly increases students’ chances of success but it is still mostly funded through patchwork grants that are susceptible to local and state level politics.Let your congress person know that you think pre-k is an important educational reform that needs explicit funding in the most important federal education law, the ESEA.

You can do that by sending them a message here.

http://www.preknowinfocenter.org/campaign/eseano_032010