No Way Out

The No Child Left Behind Act provides only the illusion of school choice.

Lisa Snell from the October 2004 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

The president's 2005 budget would raise education spending still further, to $57.3 billion. Under No Child Left Behind, Title I aid has risen to $12.4 billion. Title I spending has increased more during the first two years of the Bush administration than it did during all eight years of Bill Clinton's administration.

Unenforceable Choice

Despite state education leaders' cries that schools cannot afford the choices that NCLB was supposed to enshrine in law, districts are sitting on $5.8 billion in unspent federal funding from previous years, including nearly $2 billion in Title I aid. New York ranks first with $689 million in unspent funds; California is second with $671 million. Such money could provide many scholarships to better-performing private or public schools. Local districts claim that the unused funding is already obligated to existing programs and that federal funding rules are responsible for the delays.

Extra dollars do not necessarily equal better performance. More than 26,000 schools have been designated as failing under NCLB. The 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that more than two-thirds of fourth- and eighth-graders were not proficient in math and reading. The NAEP also provides troubling news for students in Title I schools. In math, for example, 7 percent of black eighth-graders and 11 percent of Hispanics are proficient, while 61 percent and 53 percent, respectively, are "below basic."

Camden schools show that more money is not the answer. Camden is one of New Jersey's 30 Abbott districts -- districts with low property-tax bases that receive supplemental funding from the state. As a result, Camden's per-pupil funding is higher than the New Jersey state average of $10,000 and the national average of $8,000; the Camden district has revenues of approximately $15,000 per pupil and receives large portions of federal Title I dollars. Camden schools had more than 1,200 incidents of serious violence in 2001-02, an increase of 300 percent from the previous year. The district has refused to release updated school violence numbers since then, but this year saw several highly publicized incidents, including a foiled Columbine-style plot to shoot students and an increase in the number of schools labeled persistently dangerous.

In the beginning, supporters of No Child Left Behind argued that its problems were just a matter of districts' adjusting to the new law. But as we begin the third school year in which kids are supposed to be able to escape failing schools, a lack of meaningful choice appears to be the norm.

The paucity of choice reflects another failure of the law: It has no real sanctions for schools that fail to comply. Parents can't even sue the government to compel federal officials to enforce the law. When parents in New York City and Albany sued their districts for denying children their rights to transfer and to receive tutoring services, a federal judge dismissed the suit, ruling that the law did not confer "choice" rights that could be enforced in court.

To judge from education activists' reports, going directly to the U.S. Department of Education doesn't seem to be an effective course of action either. New Jersey activist Angel Cordera repeatedly has tried in vain to get the Department of Education to enforce the law's school choice provision. In the meantime, he has worked tirelessly to find private scholarships for the most victimized children. Cordera recently found a place for Ashley Fernandez in a local Catholic school.

In the last two years, the Camden City Council (whose current members have never enrolled their own children in Camden's public schools) has twice passed resolutions calling for immediate school vouchers for the city's trapped children. Last fall the council voted 5-1 to ask the state of New Jersey to allow public funds to be used for scholarships. Such scholarships would enable children who are eligible to attend a school outside the Camden district, or even a private school. A 2003 survey by Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute found that 72 percent of residents in Abbott districts such as Camden support vouchers.

But for the time being, such options aren't available for students such as Ashley -- and Abraham Santana and Samet Kieng. They don't have 15 years to wait for the No Child Left Behind Act to increase reading and math proficiency. They don't need Washington rhetoric about accountability, empowerment, or the imminent arrival of help. They need real choices now -- while they're still in school and while they still have a chance to learn.

Comments

|2.13.10 @ 3:00AM|#

i do know they can transfer i told the special ed regional personal this and she sid no. i told her to read..they can leave that day with a transfer.im out.silverio

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nfl jerseys|11.8.10 @ 2:46AM|#

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