State Education Chiefs Impatient for ESEA Reauthorization

No Child Left Behind, the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, has been up for reauthorization since 2007. President Obama made education a central tenet of his recent State of the Union Address, encouraging Congress to reauthorize the law. And many education stakeholders have been speculating as to whether Congress will find enough common ground to pass a new bill this year. As Ed Week recently reported, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has joined the choir of organizations pushing Congress to undertake reauthorization this year through a letter to Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Senator Michael Enzi (R-WY). Perhaps most importantly, the letter makes clear that states are not willing to wait much longer for a new version of ESEA to begin implementing new reforms.

The letter describes the state education chiefs’ dedication to implementing reforms like common standards, rigorous assessments, and better data systems; outlines priorities for ESEA reauthorization like better accountability systems, more flexibility, and higher quality teacher evaluation systems; and declares that absent reauthorization, states will begin to propose their own reform plans focused on college and career readiness, improving student outcomes, and supporting low-performing schools.

This last point is likely the most important statement in the letter. Prior to No Child Left Behind, few states had in place accountability systems linked to statewide tests, data systems that could track students over time, or methods for identifying chronically underperforming schools. The federal government had to legislate that states engage in these activities, making them a condition of receiving billions of dollars in Title I and other federal funding. Initially, many states grudgingly implemented these systems, decrying the lack of local control over schools and curricula and the increase in federal influence.

But nearly 10 years later, state officials are expressing their desire to implement advanced versions of these systems, even embracing the possibilities of collaboration across states. Though the state chiefs still want the ability to tailor accountability systems to their states’ needs and generally more flexibility than No Child Left Behind allows, a clearly important component of any education legislation, this letter represents a pretty dramatic shift from the past.

In fact, many of the ideas outlined in the letter reflect the priorities specified in the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition. Better standards and assessments, data use, and support for struggling schools are all mentioned explicitly in both Race to the Top and the CCSSO letter. Perhaps the Obama administration was on target in identifying these areas of focus. After all, Race to the Top led states to focus more deeply on these issues and assemble plans to address them.

What will this letter mean in the long run? Of course, just because CCSSO wrote a letter doesn’t mean it expresses the sentiments of every single state. Surely some states will choose not to offer new reform plans or will insist on dialing back some of the progress they have already made. And many of these types of reforms trigger divisive debates within states that may overshadow the dedication of their education chiefs. But it does suggest that the majority of states grasp the urgency of improving ESEA and those states are willing to take matters into their own hands to do so.

Now it is up to Congress to decide whether education truly will be the bi-partisan issue of 2011 or just another political powder keg.