Every Child Achieves Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to support the bipartisan Every Child Achieves Act. This bill is landmark legislation that would reform and reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind. This bill would improve our schools and strengthen the traditional roles played by our local communities, our educators, and our States.

I am proud to have joined every member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in voting to report this bill and I applaud the chairman, Senator Alexander, and the ranking member, Senator Murray, for their leadership.

Congressional action to remedy the serious problems with the law No Child Left Behind, while preserving its valuable parts, is long overdue. NCLB was a well-intentioned law, and its focus on the education of every child, greater transparency in school performance, and more accountability for results were welcome reforms. But some of its provisions were simply not achievable and thus discouraging to teachers, to parents, and to students alike.

The current system of unattainable standards and a patchwork of State waivers has led to confusion about Federal requirements. High-stakes testing and unrealistic 100-percent proficiency goals do not raise aspirations; they instead dispirit those who are committed to a high-quality education for our students. Responding to those concerns in 2004, along with then-Senator Olympia Snowe, I established the Maine NCLB Task Force to examine the issues facing Maine and to provide recommendations for changes to No Child Left Behind.

Our task force brought together individuals with a great deal of expertise, experience, and perspective on the law and on educational policy in general. The task force included teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members, parents, and State officials. It was cochaired by Leo Martin, a former commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, and Anne Pooler, a former professor and then-associate dean at the College of Education at the University of Maine. The task force completed its work in 2005.

Well, our Maine NCLB task force proved to be prescient in identifying the problems with implementing No Child Left Behind, and 10 years later its report is as relevant as ever.

Chief among the task force's final recommendations was the need for greater flexibility for the State department of education and for local school boards. The members pointed out that the principles of improved student performance and closing achievement gaps were completely compatible with according States more flexibility to design different accountability systems.

Reflecting that recommendation, the bill before us, the Every Child Achieves Act, would remove the high-stakes accountability system that has been proven unworkable under No Child Left Behind. Our bill would give States much-needed flexibility over how to improve the accountability of schools for student achievement. Recognizing also the critical importance of family engagement in education, the bill supports school districts in conducting parent outreach and participation activities.

The Every Child Achieves Act would also eliminate the burdensome definition of a ``highly qualified teacher'' which has proven to be unworkable in Maine's small, rural schools. In such schools, the reality is that teachers must often teach multiple subjects and are reassigned to different content areas because of low enrollment.

For example, on Maine's North Haven Island, there is one school that serves all students from kindergarten through the 12th grade. With fewer than 70 students, North Haven Community School is one of the smallest K-through-12 schools in my State. It is not surprising that the educators at the North Haven Community School teach multiple subject areas across the different grades because of the school's size.

Speaking of smaller schools, I am particularly pleased that the Every Child Achieves Act would extend the Rural Education Achievement Program, known as REAP, which I coauthored with former Senator Kent Conrad in 2002. Students in rural America should have the same access to Federal grant dollars as those who attend schools in large urban and suburban communities. Most Federal competitive grant programs, however, favor larger school districts because those are the districts that have the ability to hire grant writers to apply for these grants.

If you are in a school district such as North Haven, which only has 70 students for all the grades, you don't have the luxury of extra funds to hire grant writers to apply for these competitive grant programs.

What REAP does is provides financial assistance to small and high-poverty rural districts to help them address their unique local needs and also to meet Federal requirements. This program has helped to support new technology in classrooms, distance learning opportunities, professional development for educators, as well as an array of other programs that benefit students and teachers in rural districts. Since the law was enacted, at least 120 Maine school districts have collectively received more than $42 million from the Rural Education Achievement Program. That is money which has made a real difference to these small, rural, high-poverty districts, and it is Federal funds that they would never have been able to successfully compete for when they were applying against large, urban school districts.

Maine's educators are working hard to develop high-quality assessments that better track student performance and growth. I am pleased that the Every Child Achieves Act includes a pilot program to support States that are designing alternative assessment systems based on student proficiency, not just traditional standardized tests. Such systems often give teachers, parents, and students a fuller understanding of each student's abilities and better prepare them for college or the career path they choose. The Federal Government should cooperate with States and school districts that are designing new assessment systems, and this pilot program is an important step in the right direction.

During the committee's consideration of this bill, I offered an amendment with Senator Sanders to allow more States to participate in the innovative assessment program and to give participating school districts more time to scale up their systems statewide. Our amendment passed unanimously in committee, and I thank Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray for continuing to work with me to refine and improve this pilot program.

The bottom line is that Washington should not be imposing a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to assessment. What works in Chicago may not be the answer for Turner, ME, which was named a Blue Ribbon School last year. Assessing the progress of our students is critical, but there are many effective ways to determine students' level of learning.

Fifty years ago and alongside significant civil rights legislation, Congress first passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to improve access to education, particularly for the students from low-income families. Providing a good education for every child must remain a national priority so that each child reaches his or her full potential, has a wide range of opportunities, and can compete in an increasingly global economy. The Every Child Achieves Act honors those guiding principles while returning greater control and flexibility to our States, to local school boards, and to educators.

Again, I thank the chairman and the ranking member of the committee for their work in crafting this bipartisan bill. I look forward to the debate on it in the week to come, and I urge my colleagues to support its passage.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source