A state had to choose to participate in No Child Left Behind:
SEC. 1111. STATE PLANS.
(a) PLANS REQUIRED-
(1) IN GENERAL- For any State desiring to receive a grant under this part, the State educational agency shall submit to the Secretary a plan, developed by the State educational agency, in consultation with local educational agencies, teachers, principals, pupil services personnel, administrators (including administrators of programs described in other parts of this title), other staff, and parents, that satisfies the requirements of this section and that is coordinated with other programs under this Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 1998, the Head Start Act, the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act, and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
If states made a mistake, it was probably because "local educational agencies, teachers, principals...and parents" didn’t think carefully or chose not to speak up loudly enough in the face of billions of dollars of Federal money.
Most bad teachers I have encountered were simply people trapped in a job they no longer really wished to do by pension formulas and a dying local economy. The remainder simply didn’t work closely enough with students to prevent failure from getting out of hand.
I recommend that Congress consult with school principals and teachers to develop appropriate strategies for teacher selection, training, mentoring, and with state financial experts for teacher retirement funding.
In my opinion NCLB testing should continue.
The following represents my ideas for Federal educational funding, testing and reporting reform. My ideas are presented in a form that can easily be adapted into law.
States should review their testing program by 08/15/2008 for conformance to the official state curriculum and if necessary modify the testing program to reliably test for conformance.
The Department of Education shall pay $100 per student to the state department of education for distribution to the school district of each child tested within 90 days of being given the results of the NCLB testing by the state.
All students with at least 190 school days of English language instruction should sit for tests given in the English language. The reasonable expectation that a person exposed to English for just about a year will not generally perform as well as a person exposed to the language for many years shall not excuse participation in the test program. A school district that tests an ESL student in his primary language instead of English shall not receive Federal funds for such student’s testing.
The Secretary of Education shall prepare and make available on the Department of Education website a form that will allow a parent or guardian to refuse NCLB testing of their child that school year. The form shall include statements in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, Farsi, Greek, and any other language added by the Secretary of Education that opting out can cost the school district at least $100 per completed form in Federal funding and that comforting the child before the test will help the child perform better. A state, school district, school, and/or teacher may provide other information they consider of value on a supplementary document.
By the end of the school year, the state department of education shall openly post on its website a copy of each test in a standard format such as html or PDF as well as an answer key in html format.
Any exam proctor, teacher, teachers union representative, or school principal authorized by law to be on the school property where the child is taught or being tested may be authorized by the school district to make photocopies or digital camera image captures of any and all test information any time at least five minutes after the exam is officially scheduled to begin. No such photocopy or image capture shall leave the school grounds by any means prior to the timely and proper collection and forwarding of the tests for grading.
Any apparent or known parent or adult caregiver of the child may request and obtain a copy of the child’s answers by paying to the child’s teacher or school principal a fee of $10.52 per child by United States Postal Service money order bearing the child’s home address according to school records and name and payable to the school district during the period fifty to two hundred days after the child’s test has been graded. The school district may waive this charge at its discretion.
By 01/20/2011, each state shall openly post the official curriculum and all possible questions and the correct answers by grade level on the state department of education website during at least a 60 day period in advance of testing. These questions shall match up with and effectively cover the state mandated curriculum. These questions must be copyright free.
Teachers are encouraged to provide copies of their lesson plans when an absent child returns to class or before if possible. School districts are encouraged to provide postage for sending learning material to an absent child’s home.
EXPECTED SCORES
Each state may determine whether a child, covered group of children, teacher, school, or school district is failing.
For children not falling into other categories, the factors in the computation shall be past test scores, parental status and an income factor.
For Hispanic children where at least one adult in the child’s usual place of abode isn’t fluent in English, the factors in the computation shall be past test scores, parental status, number of known persons residing at home fluent in English, and an income factor.
For English language learners usually living in a place of abode without a resident fluent in English, the factors in the computation shall be past test scores, parental status, number of years the learner has been resident in the US or any other English language law region or enrolled in an English language instruction school since the learner has been four years old, age of the learner, presence in the home of a Romance language speaker, and an income factor.
The income factor may be based on the tax assessed value of the child’s residence [apartment and condominium complexes shall have their value divided by the number of units], reduced-price & fully-subsidized school lunch entitlement, zip code based estimate, subdivision based estimate, census tract based estimate, parental or caregiver statement, child supplied grouping [such as poor, middle-class/comfortable, rich, etc.], and/or state income tax information.
Other factors such as parental status may be based upon survey, estimate, or guess.
For a learning-disabled student the expected test scores shall be placed in the student’s IEP, preferably by an educator who has taught the child for over 100 days. Any parent/caregiver or expert hired by a parent/caregiver may request to see and subsequently also appeal the expected test scores. If the parent/caregiver is not satisfied with the appeal, the expected test scores furnished by the expert shall be used.
The Department of Education shall pay within 90 days after being given a new school year-over-school year comparison by the state of each student, teacher, school, and school district in a format approved by the Secretary of Education and a written certification of widespread public distribution and department of education website open posting of school and school district comparisons $80 [for a total of $180] per student tested and compared to the state department of education for distribution to the school district of each child tested and compared.
States are not required by this act to do any comparison. However, they won’t get the $180 per student, just $100 for each student tested.
States are encouraged to post their expected score formulas on their department of education websites.
States are encouraged to develop tests to guide the placement of students into classrooms employing teaching methods suited to the child.
States are advised that a renewal of this act may require test guided placement.
No teacher, school, or school district should be labeled as failing on the basis of a single test given to their students for a Federal purpose except for a scientifically sound and due process conformant test given to a child or children who are plaintiff(s) in a lawsuit in a court given the test by an order of the judge.
States and legislatively created Federal courts shall not normally make punitive, employment termination, or tax increasing statistical conclusions based on NCLB test sample sizes of children less than the minimal class size of normal children in a school or school district of concern.
PRIVATE ONE-ON-ONE TUTORING
The Federal Department of Education will annually match state department of education money for one-on-one tutoring by college graduates owing over $10,000 in student loans initially or current full-time college students if the school district also matches the money up to a maximum of $200 per student enrolled in the school district. The maximum shall be increased to $700 for each fully-subsidized National School Lunch Program student then enrolled in the district.
The state may allow school districts to reduce the amount they contribute by their percentage of fully-subsidized school lunch students and use additional state funds to make the combined state/school district contribution twice that of the Federal government.
REPORTING
For each child, a report shall be mailed towards the end of the school year to the student’s parent(s)/caregiver(s) at the address in the school district’s records and/or a copy given to the child with the request that the copy be given to the child’s parent.
This report shall contain for each subject area tested, the child’s score, the child’s expected score, the average score for the child’s grade level in the school district, and the average score in the state for the child’s grade level.
The report shall also contain the number of hours of instruction and practice given to the child or the child’s current class in reading, writing, arithmetic, proper behavior/applied psychology/effective human interaction, science and health, art, music, physical education, and social sciences/history/government as estimated by the child’s teacher(s) or any other knowledgeable person(s); the average hours permitted, recommended, or required by the state department of education in each of the nine subject areas listed for the child’s grade level; and the nationwide averaged hours to be annually computed by the Federal Department of Education for the child’s grade level if known and as known by the preparer of the report.
EDUCATIONAL ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY
The Secretary of Education shall create an Educational Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The Agency shall initially receive $200 million a year for its funding. At least ninety percent of the annual funding shall be used to make grants. No grant shall be made before August 15, 2008. The Agency shall operate in available GAO or existing Department of Education office space.
It shall have a Federal Executive Service Agency Director selected by the Secretary of Education.
The Director shall be or have been a university or college president.
If a research topic is in the substantial knowledge acquisition interest of students and/or the substantial knowledge propagation interest of educators and doesn’t kill people, the Agency may fund it at the Director’s discretion provided that no more than $5 million a year in research grants are given to the Director’s former employer.
All research grant requests submitted before January 1, 2011 shall have been completely read and approved by a college or university president.
FEDERAL PEDAGOGY INSTITUTE
The Secretary of Education shall create a Federal Pedagogy Institute.
The Institute shall initially receive $50 million a year for its funding. The Institute shall operate in available GAO or existing Department of Education office space.
It shall have a Federal Executive Service Research Director selected by the Secretary of Education. The Research Director shall attempt to scientifically determine the best way to teach groups of children and to treat individuals with learning disorders. The Research Director shall have frequently conducted published scientific research. The Secretary shall ask five top applicants to submit a documented plan of attack and shall pay them each $25,000 for their efforts.
The Research Director shall contract out such research that he in consultation with his staff deem desirable.
TITLE I SUBSTITUTE FUNDING
For each child who is in their fourth year, a one-time $3,000 Pre-K grant shall be available to the school district for pre-K funding if a paper form application is freely signed, initialed, or marked by a parent of the child or the child’s regular custodial care giver and submitted to the Secretary of Education by the district.
If a school district employee, preferably the student’s kindergarten teacher, reasonably believes a child can not read a simple English language story such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit or The Cat in the Hat in a period 120 days before the start of the first grade, a one-time $1,000 reading assistance grant per child by the Federal Department of Education shall be made available to the school district upon request to the Secretary of Education in a manner which he shall specify.
The one-time reading assistance grant per child may also be made if an in-house or outside professional determines the child suffers from dyslexia at any time during the first, second, or third grade years. The number of one-time reading assistance grants for dyslexia in any calendar year shall not exceed one-half of one percent of the total number of K-12 students in the school district as last known to the school district at the time of the last eligible grant submission.
At least 50 hours of one-on-one help must be provided for that child and /or other child under nine years of age for each reading assistance grant received.
For each foreign language child who seems far below grade level in English language skills who is entering an English language K-12 class for the first time who is placed in a class with no more than 18 students taught by a certified ESL teacher for at least 180 school days a one-time $1,500 English vocabulary grant shall be available to the school district if the child is tested by a method described below and a Federal Department of Education approved paper application form is signed by the tester and submitted to the Secretary of Education by the district.
The Secretary of Education shall prepare an official chart with pictures of a bird, a dog, a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, a blue square, and a red circle with the animals, the man, the blue square, and the girl labeled in 16-point text. The bird shall be a sparrow, the dog shall be a golden retriever, and the people shall have a skin color like that of a Mexican person in the Secretary’s opinion.
The Secretary of Education shall also prepare a test sheet with pictures of a tiger, an elephant, a lamp, a chair, a fork, George Washington, a policeman, and a judge. The test sheet shall state: Please label the pictures of George Washington, the other men, the animals, and the objects. Once you have labeled the pictures, write a sentence for each picture on the eight by eleven sheet of paper. Once you have finished writing the sentences, read them aloud.
At the kindergarten age level, the tester should point to the objects on a copy of the official chart one-by-one and ask "Is this a _?" making a few mistakes on purpose. At the first, second, or third grade age levels, the tester should point to the objects and ask "What is this?" The tester should write one or more remarks [The child couldn’t tell that a boy wasn’t a lion, etc.] on the application form.
At a grade level based on age above the third, the tester should hand the child the test sheet and a blank eight by eleven sheet of paper and after the child is done the tester should write one or more remarks [The child stared into space/The child labeled the pictures in Spanish, but couldn’t proceed further/The child labeled a few pictures in English and then ran towards his mother, etc.] on the application form and then attach the two sheets.
For each child above the second grade with a fully-subsidized school lunch entitlement and/or covered by an IEP as required by Federal law in a state, the Federal Government shall pay the state the sum of $1,000 in each calendar year on or about the second Wednesday of January starting in the year 2009 upon clear request submitted to the Federal Department of Education at least 30 days previously. This amount shall tripled for IEP students whose numbers don’t exceed three percent of the number of K-12 students in the state. The money shall be distributed by the state to the school districts in general accordance to where the students are enrolled unless the state department of education independently determines which school districts get the tripled amount by state regulation. The state regulation may be based on tests done by professionals.
The Secretary of Education may alternately utilize Federal employees or contractors to determine any and all grant eligibility in any and all states and/or school districts upon requesting and receiving specific funding from Congress which may be included in any Congressional spending bill.
Every state and every school district shall repay any mistakenly or fraudulently requested and obtained grant money to the Secretary of Education as soon as possible.
The Secretary of Education may require the school district to pay up to three times the amount of any educational grant fraud detected if that amount is paid within ninety days of his request served if possible as directed by state law and excluding delays that are a Federal fault, or up to four times thereafter.
The District of Columbia and its school system shall be considered a state and school district under all provisions in this act. The Secretary of Education may make allowances for paperwork not timely submitted by the District school system or others.
The repeal of any previous provision shall not bar any Federal court redress of educational Amendment XIV violations using a reasonable and just mechanism or means in that provision.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
It is not the job of the Federal Government to fund schools outside of the Department of Defense. Education has traditionally been a state-regulated function. Townships were mandated to run schools in colonial Massachusetts by the state even before the Federal government came into existence.
Educational funding provided by the Federal Government can be in the national interest. It can also mitigate the burdens placed on states by Amendment XIV.
In my state, the voters already chose to have "a high quality system of free public schools" themselves:
The Florida Constitution
....
SECTION 1. Public education.--
(a) The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require....
If you wish to go to Europe and your uncle hands you a few hundred dollars, I would hope you would not complain about being under-funded by him.