"Leave No Child Behind": Hearing Before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session : Hearing Held in Washington, DC, March 7, 2001, Volume 4

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Page 52 - Moreover, these tests are essential if we are to set clear goals for performance and help our schools get the job done. The alternative is to continue to rob millions of poor and disadvantaged young Americans of their futures by failing to provide them an effective education. The important thing about testing, of course, is what we do with the results. We would start by helping teachers learn to use data effectively. Secondly, we would require schools to report assessment results for all students...
Page 53 - EXPANDING FLEXIBILITY AND REDUCING BUREAUCRACY The Federal Government has recognized in recent years that it is possible to achieve better results by reducing regulations, paperwork, and bureaucracy and giving States and communities the flexibility to create their own solutions to problems in areas like education, health care, and protecting the environment. In education, for example, the 1994 ESEA...
Page 53 - ... transfer to a higher performing public or private school, or to obtain supplemental educational services from a public- or private-sector provider. I know there are disagreements about methods of reform, but surely everyone can agree that no child should be trapped in a persistently failing school. Taken as a whole, these proposals reflect what I believe is a strong consensus, both within the Congress and among the American people, that States, school districts, and schools must be accountable...
Page 50 - While the 1 994 reauthorization took some tentative steps in the right direction, it did not go nearly far enough. If you doubt that the present approach is broken and needs fixing, just consider that nearly 70 percent of inner-city fourth-graders are unable to read at even a basic level on national reading tests. Or that our high school seniors trail students in most industrialized nations on international math tests.
Page 51 - ... in our education system. To do this we need to learn from States and school districts across the country that have made remarkable progress in turning around failing schools, raising student achievement, and closing the achievement gap. We need to bring to Federal education programs many of the strategies that have worked so well at the State and local levels: increased accountability for student performance, a focus on researchbased practices, reduced bureaucracy and greater flexibility, and...
Page 53 - I schoolwide programs, which permit schools enrolling at least 50 percent poor students to combine Federal, State, and local funds to improve the quality of education for all students. Congress also created and expanded the ED-Flex Partnership program, which gives participating States the authority to waive Federal statutory and regulatory requirements in exchange for greater accountability for improving student achievement. No Child Left Behind would build on these earlier efforts to expand State...
Page 7 - No Child Left Behind" aims to give states, school districts, schools, teachers, parents, and others appropriate tools and flexibility to help all students succeed. For example, we would lower the poverty threshold for Title I school-wide programs from 50 percent to 40 percent thereby enabling thousands of additional schools to use Title I funds to upgrade the entire school. We would coordinate education technology programs to reduce the paperwork burden for submitting and administering multiple grant...
Page 7 - We would coordinate education technology programs to reduce the paperwork burden for submitting and administering multiple grant applications serving nearly identical purposes. We would consolidate overlapping and duplicative grant programs and let states and districts decide how to use their share of the single grant resulting from this combination of federal funds. In each case, the new flexibility provided...
Page 53 - ... would we use Federal funds to help that student find a better education at a private school. We are proposing to permit the use of Title I funds to help students transfer to a higher performing public or private school, or to obtain supplemental educational services from a public- or private-sector provider.
Page 51 - Our system of elementary and secondary education is failing to do its job for far too many of our children — a failure that threatens the future of our Nation, and a failure that the American people will no longer tolerate. It is just as clear that Federal education policy is not accomplishing its goals, despite the investment of more than $130 billion and the creation of hundreds of categorical programs over the past three decades.

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