Education Dept. Improves
NCLB Test Participation Rules

But Fundamental Problems Remain Unresolved

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige announced on March 29, 2004 at the National School Boards Association's annual conference in Orlando, Fla. that the U.S. Department of Education is relaxing the requirement for student participation rates in state tests.

The new policy revision is one more indication that the national debate over the so-called "No Child Left Behind" federal education law is not whether to change it, but instead is about exactly what aspects of it must be changed.

NEA President Reg Weaver said in an official statement that the changes "validate what the National Education Association has recommended for more than a year -- common sense changes to help make accountability work."

"And yet," he added, "these changes are still merely tweaking the law, while leaving many of the fundamental problems unresolved."

States Can Now Average Student Test Participation Rates

The latest change applies to the federal education law's requirement that 95% of a school's total students and of each subgroup of students pass the test used in determining "adequate yearly progress."

Sec. Paige said states now can average participation rates over a three-year period. In addition, students who are unable to take the test during the testing and make-up windows because of a unique, significant medical emergency will not count against the school’s participation rate.

Under the new policy, a state may use data from the previous one or two years to average the participation rate data for a school and/or subgroup, as needed. If this two- or three-year average meets or exceeds 95 percent, the school will still meet the AYP requirement.

Thousands of schools have already been labeled as failing or in need of improvement because one or two students failed to show up on testing day.

The newly announced policy revisions bring the number of changes accepted by the Department of Education to four.

The U.S. Department of Education had already unveiled new regulations that will allow states and local school districts some flexibility to more realistically assess certain special education students with disabilities and students with limited English abilities.

Those changes were followed by another that gives rural teachers more time to meet the law's requirements to be "highly qualified" and somewhat eases the requirement for certain science teachers.

All four are among the changes NEA has been long advocating since enactment of the sweeping federal legislation.

Fourteen State School Chief Sent Letter to Paige

On March 24, 14 chief state school officers sent a letter to Secretary Paige (PDF, 3 pages) outlining their problems with and solutions for ESEA/NCLB.

The letter stated, "Without any changes to the law, calculations suggest that within a few years, the vast majority of all schools will be identified as in need of improvement. Many of those schools will be given that designation despite having shown steady and significant improvement for all groups of students."

The states that signed the letter were Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Washington.

The group's White Paper, "The Implementation of the Accountability Provisions of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act: A State Perspective," spells out the group's positions and proposed solutions.

March 2004