Schools Forfeit Funds to Skirt Law

Bill Powell picks up a Bible from his desk to illustrate his problem with the federal No Child Left Behind law: It’s taken centuries to understand the wisdom in the book, he says, but school officials across the nation are expected to immediately understand a massive federal law written by “beany-headed bureaucrats.”

Powell, superintendent of the Strasburg 31-J school district on Colorado’s eastern plains, has never had to figure it all out. His district has given up $35,000 in federal money over the last two years so that it wouldn’t have to bother with the law. The decision will cost $50,000 more this year.

“We have arrogant people who do preemptive strikes not only on Iraq, but on the public schools in America as well,” said Powell, an unaffiliated voter.

In 2002, President Bush signed the law, which required all U.S. schoolchildren to be proficient in reading, writing and math by 2014. But many educators worry about its performance and testing requirements, particularly in rural states.

In rural Colorado, officials like Powell believe that state and federal governments are usurping local control and that the needs of rural districts are ignored.

Last year, eight states considered pulling out of No Child Left Behind but none actually did, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver. This year, one -- Utah -- is weighing the move after getting $107 million in federal aid during the last school year.

Some states have asked to be exempted because their accountability systems are at least as good as the federal law; Vermont has refused to use any state money to comply with it.

Districts in at least four states -- Illinois, Connecticut, Vermont and California -- have decided to pull out on their own, just as Strasburg did, according to the legislatures’ group.

Marty Strange, policy director for the Rural School and Community Trust in Vermont, said it would be easy for small schools to fail to meet the standards because a few children could skew the percentages. He said Nebraska had proposed combining small districts into a larger unit for reporting test scores, and he expect other creative attempts to skirt the requirements.

“There’s a little bit of a Boston Tea Party attitude out there,” Strange said.

Gerald Keefe, superintendent of the Kit Carson R-1 district in southeastern Colorado, said he voted for Bush but didn’t think that Washington could be trusted to lead on something as complex as education. He hopes that more districts will follow Strasburg’s lead -- if they can afford it.

“If, one by one, state by state, people stand up and say we have to control education at the local level, something could happen,” said Keefe, whose district has 100 students.

Colorado lawmakers are considering making it easier for districts to turn down federal money tied to No Child Left Behind by asking local voters to raise property taxes to make up for the loss.

State Senate Minority Leader Mark Hillman, a Republican, said he sponsored the bill because he had always believed that the federal government should stay out of local education, even though he backed the principle behind Bush’s initiative -- that every child could learn.

“It’s important, regardless of which party is in power, to send a message to Washington that there are certain issues that are best left to local officials,” Hillman said.

The federal law requires states to administer testing and gather information about progress from each school district. Even if a district decides to opt out, it will still have to comply with the state requirements.

In Kit Carson, about half the teachers would meet new standards requiring them to be certified in every subject they teach. Among those who don’t qualify are an agriculture teacher who also teaches social studies, and a successful music teacher who’s completed about half the required coursework for the job.

“He knows how to get kids to love music and perform and make it part of their days and lives,” Keefe said.

Keefe said the district ran the risk of losing a second layer of federal funding used for teacher training if teachers didn’t meet the standards. He said the state was also trying to push compliance by granting emergency exceptions for new nonqualified teachers for just a year at a time.

The law says districts must inform the public of any teacher who doesn’t meet the standards. Keefe said that was intended to shame districts into compliance, but he thought that people in Kit Carson would just laugh if the district proclaimed the music teacher unqualified.

In Strasburg, officials say they’ve been working on making sure that no child gets left behind with intensive, one-on-one tutoring in reading for struggling first-graders and making every staff member responsible for the progress of students with academic or emotional problems.

Elementary school Principal Deborah Lemmer said she was disappointed that the reading recovery method used at the school wasn’t endorsed in the federal law. “Children aren’t controlled products. Everything has to be designed around the kids that are in that classroom. Anytime someone says, ‘You have to do it this way,’ I have doubts,” she said.

Stacy Rodriguez said she was not worried about Strasburg schools opting out. The mother of three said each teacher knew every student, ensuring a good education.

Each day, Rodriguez has to sign notices outlining her children’s homework and she is alerted if her children are late to class, whether they’ve turned in their assignments and if they’ve done something good, such as help another student.

Last year, she recalled, the high school principal tutored her two daughters in math after school and during lunch until they understood their lessons.

“They’ve taken every step to ensure that these kids are taught well, and every measure to make sure that all the kids understand that curriculum,” she said.