Straight A's A Family Rights Perspective

Straight A’s – A Family Rights Perspective

Of our many concerns about Straight A’s -- both concerning the lack of any coherent rationale (especially in light of existing authority for consolidation of state and local applications, consolidation of administrative funds, waivers, and Ed-Flex) and its negative implications for a coherent federal role in education -- none is more important than its potential nullification of the school-level sections of Title I (§1114 and §1115) and the parent involvement section (§1118 of current law).

This is the heart of the program -- at the school-level where education is actually provided. Without sections 1114 and 1115, once the funds reach the school, there really is no program at all, only general aid or revenue sharing. (And the loss of section 1118 would complete this destruction of real, bottom-up accountability to the community and its families.)

In all the discussion about accountability for results, people are forgetting that in the end, schools do not achieve, students do. The school’s real accountability is for fulfilling its responsibility to provide all children with the high-quality educational program they need in order to achieve. That is the focus of Sections 1114 and 1115, in identifying a few of the most basic things students need in order to achieve -- e.g., aligned and enriched curriculum, effective instructional methods, timely and effective individual attention to students having difficulty meeting particular standards, and highly qualified staff who are receiving quality staff development. Schools can meet these responsibilities under sections 1114 and 1115 in myriad ways (working jointly with parents under Section 1118), and States must (under 1111(b)(6)) identify how they will help schools and LEAs meet those responsibilities.¹

Elimination of parents' rights under section 1118 (especially in conjunction with planning the program under 1114, 1115, and 1112) would also be a huge loss for parents. The specifics in that section, on information, training, and assistance, and on how parent involvement in the programs will be designed and agreed upon were carefully worked out in 1994 and are a major, major advance over vague "involved" or "consulted" language that consistently proved meaningless before that.

Parents count on these provisions for laying out what they can expect for their children (1114 and 1115) and providing them a role (1118) in developing those components. Trading this in for a promised percentage gain in your school’s aggregate scores alone, while one important component of reform, is no substitute for the others, if your children are not getting the instruction and assistance they need. It would be like telling parents that, if you take your children to a hospital, all your expectations about standards of care for treating your children or for dispensing medication are now gone, because after all, the hospital has agreed to reduce its overall mortality or morbidity rates.

As important as this year’s appropriations levels are, the impact of a Straight A’s is far more durable and significant. Any "compromise" that increases funding but includes these Straight A’s provisions should be strongly opposed and get a "no" vote.

Comments on Other Provisions of the 4/18/01 Straight A’s Senate Draft

6302. PURPOSE. The stated purposes of the Act will actually be harmed by the Act. For example, while one purpose is "to empower parents and schools to effectively address the needs of their children and students" (Sec. 6302(2)), in fact it is hard to imagine a bill that does more to disempower parents than Straight A’s. Not only does it remove all the parent involvement tools established by Section 1118 for helping parents understand and be involved in the programs to educate their children, it eliminates the substantive provisions of sections 1114 and 1115 which spell out what they can expect for their children in the way of quality education – e.g., provisions for enriched curriculum aligned with the standards, effective instructional methods, timely and effective individual assistance for students having difficulty mastering a standard, and highly qualified staff with strong staff development. So taken together, parents lose their clear expectation (under 1114 and 1115) that these things will be provided to their children, and they lose their rights (under 1118) to participate jointly in spelling out how those things will be provided., and to receive the information, training and assistance to participate and to understand – for which Straight A’s deserves the popular title of "The Parent Disempowerment Act." (Similar comments could be made about its impact on its other stated purposes regarding accountability, reform, capacity, and achievement.)

6304(c) AMENDMENT OF PERFORMANCE AGREEMENT. While parent involvement in developing the original Straight A’s performance agreement is extremely weak [(as compared with Title I) – namely notice and opportunity to comment, 6304(a)(1)(E)], it is non-existent in any amendment of the agreement.

6305(b) ELIGIBLE PROGRAMS. Aside from the devastating impact of including Title I in the nullified Acts, there are additional problems with various of the others included on the list. For example, the inclusion of CSRD (Part G of title I) means that schools would accept money under the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration while ignoring any of the requirements to actually have and implement a comprehensive reform plan. Teacher quality provisions (under Title II) would be gone. Further, Straight A’s would apply to any State formula grant program to assist elementary and secondary education enacted after BEST, e.g. any reauthorization of Perkins -- thereby nullifying the provisions of Perkins designed to ensure that their children in vocational programs do not get a second-class education and are not channeled into narrow job training.

6307. LIMITATIONS ON ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENDITURES.

6308. PERFORMANCE REVIEW AND PENALTIES.

The maximum penalties for a State are 0.3% of the funds (that is 30% of the administrative funds, which are capped at 1% of the total federal funds) it receives under the affected federal programs (or 0.9% of the funds if the funds do not include Title I, or 30% of a administrative maximum of 3%). For a district, the maximum penalty is 1.2% of the affected federal funds (i.e., 30% of a maximum 4% allowance for administrative funds).

6308(e)(1) STATE SANCTIONS. Any statistically significant increase in state assessment scores for minorities or economically disadvantaged students is sufficient. This is because the sanctions apply only to States where there is no adequate yearly progress under section 1111(b)(2)(B) and students who are racial and ethnic minorities, and economically disadvantaged minorities in the State failed to make statistically significant progress. "Statistically significant progress" is vastly short of "adequate yearly progress."

¹The confusion over the meaning of "accountability" is also reflected in the discussion of what States will be asked to demonstrate as a prerequisite to becoming eligible for Straight A's. The focus has been largely on whether they demonstrate they have a measurement system for determining whether students are achieving the state standards (a system already required by section 1112 of Title I). The accountability focus has not been on whether the States, the districts, and the schools have an educational system capable of providing students with the basic elements of a quality program necessary to achieve the standards (the focus of 1114 and 1115 ). This, of course, is now and will remain our biggest gap in fulfilling the goals of standards-based reform.