A Recap of the State Board Of Education's
April 2007 Meeting

State BOE Weighs in on Reauthorization of No Child Left Behind Act

The state Board of Education decided Thursday in its K-12 meeting to reschedule its Aug. 9 meeting to Monday, Aug. 6 when school accountability results will be ready. After board approval, the results can be released to the schools and the public.

“The rationale is we try to get the (test) results out as soon as possible,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Joe Morton. “We have the eighth best turnaround record among the 50 states in doing that.”

Sanctions and rewards under No Child Left Behind – which seeks reading and math proficiency for all students by 2013-14 – are made based on school accountability data and whether adequate yearly progress was made.

Reauthorization of the 5-year-old NCLB law sparked board conversation Thursday from members who attended U.S. Reps. Artur Davis and Jo Bonner’s recent meetings on the issue.

Bonner met with education, community, business and political leaders in Baldwin County, and Davis had a town hall meeting in Birmingham.

Randy McKinney, who represents Baldwin and Mobile counties, said NCLB and English as a Second Language pose “terrific opportunities” for school systems in his district. “Being a board member, I have heard comments about No Child Left Behind from all sides,” he said, “so I figured the best thing I could do was be a part of getting the people that were involved in every level of this together in the same room and let them discuss it. I believe it was very helpful for the congressman and his staff.”

McKinney said NCLB has many benefits, but also “has a few areas that we probably need to adjust and tweak. I think most people are thinking: ‘How can we make it continue to have positive impact in education but not be punitive to some people?’” David Byers Jr. and Ella Bell participated in Davis’ Birmingham event. Like McKinney, Byers was impressed with how the meeting “brought together a lot of people who needed to be heard from in the Birmingham area in education.”

“Tweaked” was the word Bell emphasized in her comments Thursday. In reiterating a point Davis made, she said the plight of rural schools seemed to be overlooked by NCLB.

“Congressman Davis said that when the legislation was first authorized … there was nothing written to respond to the peculiar needs of rural education. And he said, ‘I represent that kind of constituency, and so does Mrs. Bell,’” Bell said. “No Child Left Behind has brought the American citizen into full play with education; it’s part of the national discussion, the national agenda. If a couple things need tweaking, one thing that concerns me most about my district is the highly qualified teacher.”

Bell said there is little incentive for a highly qualified teacher who has undergone the rigors of graduation and teacher testing and is in great demand in higher paying systems to work in a poor, rural school.

“The name of the game is parity, and it’s just completely off,” Bell added. “There are schools in systems that are poor. The resources are just not there. We are going to have to figure out a way to bring some kind of parity in instruction, parity in facilities, and parity in people. We’ve got to figure out a way to do that, otherwise it will continue to be unfair for us to use the same method of assessing children’s performance when they certainly don’t have the same things in all other aspects.”

AASB was represented at Davis’ meeting by its president Jim Methvin. It was at AASB’s urging that Bonner and Rep. Mike Rogers agreed to cosponsor bill H.R. 648, legislation to improve the No Child Left Behind Act. Backed by school boards across the nation, the bi-partisan bill provides a legislative solution to the obstacles local school boards face in implementing NCLB and would more accurately reflect how schools are performing.

In other business Thursday, the state board:

• Unanimously approved a resolution supporting the specific recommendations of the Governor’s Congress on School Leadership and Commission on Quality Teaching. The recommendations range from a redesign of university-level preparation programs for school leaders and teachers to research-based professional development and a statewide teacher mentoring program;
• Recognized the Discovery Hall Summer Marine Science Course – part of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab – as an “academically sound experience for Alabama’s students”; and
• Announced its intent to repeal and adopt new administrative rules for special education services. Regional hearings across the state are under way to collect public input on the administrative code changes, and a vote on the issue is expected in June. The revisions would fall in line with federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act regulations that became effective last October.

The board travels to Decatur for its K-12 work session April 26 at Decatur High School.

—Denise L. Berkhalter