To: Education Advocates
From: Center for Law and Education
Date: September 15, 1998
House to vote on harmful "Dollars to the Classroom Act" this Friday (Sept. 18)!
Call and Fax Your House Member Sept. 16, 17, and 18th.
In the first major education legislation to hit the floor since the public release of the Starr report, the full U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote this Friday on the radical "Dollars to the Classroom Act" (H.R. 3248). The bill sounds benign, but it is a clear step into the conservative agenda for education. It would lump together funding from a long list of important federal education programs, wiping out provisions that promote quality and equity. Although the dismal consequences of block grants are well understood by reform advocates, the bill includes two other provisions whose dangers are less fully appreciated : expanding the "Ed-Flex" demonstration project to all 50 states and an ill thought out change in Title I policy. Your help is needed in contacting your House members to urge them to oppose all three provisions H.R. 3248!
What to do:
Talking Points in Opposition
to "Dollars to the Classroom Act"
(H.R. 3248)
Block Grants
H.R. 3248 wipes out quality, accountability, and equity requirements contained in 31 federal programs, including major reform initiatives such as School to Work Opportunities and Goals 2000. For example, provisions to require education for homeless children and ensure that school-to-work programs provide meaningfully broad education instead of narrow job training would be eliminated, no questions asked.
The bill's vague provision that States "tak[e] into consideration" poverty rates and equity in distributing funding is no reassurance. A recent federal study of federal and state financing patterns found that, left to their own devices, States are overwhelmingly less likely to focus funding on our neediest students. (School Finance: State and Federal Efforts to Target Poor Students, General Accounting Office) For every $1 of federal funding received for each student, districts on average received an additional $4.73 per poor student. State programs, in contrast, provide on average just $.62 per poor student. This evidence plainly contradicts wishful thinking by supporters of H.R. 3248 that if States are just given money with no strings attached, more will trickle down to low income and disadvantaged students in the classroom.
Eliminating accountability requirements virtually guarantees that schools will continue to fail to provide quality education for all students, which will only provide more ammunition for those deliberately seeking to undermine support for public education itself.
Ed-Flex
H.R. 3248 would also impede community efforts to hold schools accountable by extending the Education Flexibility Demonstration Program ("Ed-Flex") to all 50 states. This is same proposal we warned of in our recent alert against the Senate version, S. 2213. This expansion would happen without any proof that the demonstration has worked.
Ed-Flex gives States unilateral power to waive many federal program requirements that protect the needs of all students, including many that would survive the proposed block granting. For example, most Title I and Perkins vocational education requirements could be "flexed" away, including requirements that a school identify and address a child's difficulties in meeting high standards or provide meaningful education instead of narrow job training in voc-ed programs.
Only 12 States currently participate in the Ed-Flex demonstration project, and there has been no attempt whatsoever to evaluate its impact on reform in those States before enshrining it as national policy. Even if it were found to have had no detrimental impact thus far, the real danger is that Ed-Flex will provide a way for reluctant school authorities to trump future efforts by communities to hold them accountable for providing quality and equity.
Like block grants, Ed-Flex is based on a fundamental mis-perception that federal "inflexibility" is the reason millions of America's low income and disadvantaged children do not receive quality education. Ignored in this discussion over federal guidelines is the logical starting point: the weak implementation and enforcement of federal requirements in the first place.
Title I
H.R 3248 would also dramatically alter Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). It would allow even the wealthiest schools receiving Title I funding to use that money for schoolwide reform instead of focusing on students facing the greatest academic challenges. Currently only schools with at least 50% of students in poverty may use Title I funds schoolwide. Under the proposed change, even a school serving a largely wealthy population would be free to spend its Title I funding on schoolwide programs, rather than to provide assistance to students most in need. By making this change in an unrelated bill outside the context of a discussion on full implementation of the requirements of Title I, the House Republicans add to the appearance that this bill is really about spreading precious federal resources more thinly at the expense of students in most need.
Wait for Reauthorization of ESEA. Both the proposed Title I amendment and the Ed- Flex proposal are being considered in isolation from the rest of ESEA, which is up for Congressional reauthorization next year. These are serious and complex issues that deserve full and informed consideration in the context of the overall Act next year. Plowing ahead with these drastic changes, without a clear assessment of what the real obstacles to successful and equitable education are, is premature and ill-advised.