Developments on No Child Left Behind

Developments on
No Child Left Behind

Issues and Action in Education

An e-letter produced
by
EdWatch, a nonprofit organization.

February 26, 2005

Developments on No Child Left Behind

1. Bush: Defund the Center for Civic Education
2. Bush: Defund the Mental Health Integration in the Schools
3. George Will and Republicans on NCLB
4. Report from the National Conference on State Legislators
5. Utah set to reject No Child Left Behind

1. Bush: Defund the Center for Civic Education
        The President’s 2005 budget proposals include
eliminating funding for numerous controversial education programs within No
Child Left Behind. Included is the Center for Civic Education’s We the
People program. WTP program includes the


We The People: The Citizen and the Constitution textbook (the
federal curriculum), promotion of the National Standards on Civics and
Government, We the People teacher training, and making those programs and
products “available” to all schools.

        The battle to scuttle the

“New Civics” Federal Academies last year is paying off. Awareness of the
dangers of the WTP program is rising on Capitol Hill. Charles Quigley, the
Executive Director of the Center for Civic Education,

described the New Civics Federal Academies bill as “a prominent and
productive element of this movement.” (Members of Congress, meanwhile, were
being misinformed by the chief authors that the New Civics legislation was
unrelated to the CCE, the federal curriculum, or WTP.) This story is
developing and more information will be coming..

2. Bush: Defund the Mental Health Integration in the Schools
        Other good news is the President’s proposed
elimination of funding in NCLB of

Mental Health Integration in the Schools,

Foundations for Learning (another program with mental health screening
concerns), Regional Education Labs, and many School-to-Work programs, such
as

Smaller Learning Communities. The Regional Education Labs have been a
hotbed of radical change in education for forty years. Mental Health
Screening is a major policy battle in this Congress. This story is
developing and more information will be coming.

3. George Will and the Republican Study Committee on NCLB
        It has been three years since


FedEd: The New Federal Curriculum and How Its Enforced was
published. This book revealed  for the first time the role of federal
legislation in establishing a radical, integrated curriculum in every public
school through the Center for Civic Education and its


We The People: The Citizen and the Constitution textbook. Since that
time over 17,000 copies of FedEd have been sold, many times by the
case. Conferences, interviews, videotapes, and websites have spread the
information. The message is getting out, in spite of official denials by
NCLB defenders that there is no federal curriculum.

        In his February 17th column, George Will described
the increasing opposition to the federal education law among Republicans.
Will states:

                “The Republican Study
Committee, whose chairman is Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, is an
organization of 100 particularly adamant conservatives among House
Republicans. Pence, for example, was one of just 12 Republicans who
voted against the prescription drug entitlement and against No Child
Left Behind because of its imposition of federal standards on elementary
education, quintessentially a state and local responsibility.
                “When, a couple of
weeks ago, the RSC met in Baltimore to enumerate its priorities, their
list included “maintaining local control of secondary education.” That
may seem an anodyne sentiment; actually it is a shot across the Bush
administration’s bow. It is code for: Enough centralization — we
oppose the president’s plan for extending federal standards to high
schools. Thirty-four House Republicans voted against No Child Left
Behind in 2001. More might oppose the administration’s planned extension
of its sweep.” [Emphasis added.]


        In 2001, only thirty-four House Republicans voted
against No Child Left Behind, in spite of the support of their President.
These members recognized NCLB as an unconstitutional intrusion of the
federal government into education. In 2005, however, many more conservative
House members oppose the expansion of standards and assessments to high
schools. This understanding of the role of state and national standards and
assessments in the federal take-over of education has been a long time
coming. But it is taking hold. (See


America’s Schools: The Battleground for Freedom which defines NCLB
in detail.)
———————————————
4. Report from the National Conference on State Legislators
        The
National
Conference on State Legislatures issued a 10 month

study of the No Child Left Behind Act.


The Washington Post called the 77 page report “an escalation in the
war of words surrounding the law.” The Post went on to say:”The report
complained that the federal government provides less than 8 percent of the
nation’s education funds and seeks to impose an unworkable accountability
system in return.”

        Republican state Sen. Steve Saland of New York, who
co-chaired the task force, stated, “We believe the federal government’s role
has become excessively intrusive in the day-to-day operations of public
education.” According to

Education Week, the report raises constitutional issues, stating that:

“the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define a role for the
federal government in K-12 education.” A 1987 U.S. Supreme Court
decision requires the federal government to be “unambiguous” and forbids
it to be “coercive” when implementing laws in areas where the
Constitution doesn’t explicitly provide for a federal role, the report
says.”The protracted period of negotiations between states and the U.S.
Department of Education and ongoing amendments to state plans in
response to changing federal guidelines, inconsistent approvals to
amendment requests, resulting lack of notice or availability of
precedent for states to rely on is strong evidence that the law is not”
unambiguous, the report argues.


        The NCSL, however, has no plans to sue the federal
government, according to Minnesota’s Sen.Steve Kelley, a co-charman of the
task force. Instead, the report proposes beefing up the federal spending and
making the law more user-friendly. While describing NCLB as an “assertion of
federal authority into an area historically reserved to the states,” there
is not the slightest hint of an awareness of or opposition to the

federal curriculum being mandated on all schools in the nation through
federally funded national standards and state assessments. The NCLS supports
the Adequate Yearly Progress of federal testing.

        In Minnesota, for example, Sen. Kelley and other
Democrat Senators have introduced SF 1244 which continues to hold the state
to the same flawed standards, even if Minnesota walks away from NCLB. The
state standards are low expectations (“the floor,” as Sen. Kelley says), 
they are highly politicized, and Kelley had

a strong hand in crafting them. Challenging the NCLB laws in court would
undermine all sorts of federal intrusions into education that Kelley and
others dearly love, such as the national standards themselves.


5. Utah set to reject No Child Left
Behind
By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Utah’s state Legislature is poised to repudiate the No Child Left Behind Act
and spurn $116 million in federal aid tied to it because state policy-makers
are fed up with federal control of education and dictates.

   “This is not a partisan issue; this is a states’ rights issue,” said Rep.
Margaret Dayton, a 55-year-old Republican and mother of 12 who has led the
rebellion to make Utah the first state to opt out of No Child Left Behind.

   “We share the same passion President Bush has for quality education, but
there is not one opponent [to opting out] in the entire Legislature, which
is 2-to-1 Republican,” Mrs. Dayton said. {Full
story.]

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you want to assure that our work continues, click here. If you want to
subscribe or unsubscribe to this EdWatch e-mail service, mail to: edwatch@lakes.com. Put “subscribe” or “unsubscribe” in the SUBJECT of
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