School Board News

A new Standard and Poor’s report has “has not taken a position on the 65 Percent Solution,” but in fact “has found a lack of empirical evidence linking higher student achievement with higher proportional spending levels.” We’ll take that.

The Standard & Poor’s analysis suggests “that the specific ways that schools use their instructional dollars may have as much, if not more, to do with student achievement as the percentage of dollars spent on the classroom.” Press release here. Full report in PDF here.

The day before Thanksgiving, a federal court in Michigan dismissed the NEA-led lawsuit challenging unfunded mandates under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). New York Times coverage, here, and Hartford Courant, here.

In granting the federal motion to dismiss the case, the court agreed with the federal interpretation of what NCLB’s unfunded mandates provision means. Turns out Congress is free to impose unfunded mandates under the act after all: The language just states specifically that a federal officer or employee can’t pile on additional unfunded NCLB mandates. “This does not mean that Congress could not do so, which it obviously has done by passing the NCLB Act,” the court concluded.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings calls the ruling “victory for children and parents all across the country.” NEA says in a press release that it plans to appeal the decision. By the way, the judge found that the plaintiffs do have legal standing to bring the challenge, at least at this early stage.

As we noted before, this lawsuit yielded for the first time a plausible legal argument from the feds about the unfunded mandate issue. It’s not the same as the one they’ve made politically (“You’re free to turn down the money” or “The GAO says this isn’t an unfunded mandate”), but it worked. As the court noted, the federal government argued that it’s not plausible that Congress really intended to require so much of states and school districts, only to let them off the hook if they claim that they have to spend some of their own funds.

While NEA appeals, attention may shift to Connecticut’s lawsuit. That state’s Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says the court’s ruling “creates a preposterous loophole” to the ban on unfunded mandates. He points out that the decision is not binding in Connecticut’s case, which he says his state still plans to pursue “vigorously.”

Meanwhile, watch as the feds explore more flexibility on NCLB, like last week’s announcement of a 10-state pilot program for using “value-added” or “growth” calculations to measure adequate yearly progress. This is one improvement NSBA has long been advocating. The trick: How to give schools credit for making realistic progress with individual students, without perpetuating achievement gaps. Stay tuned.

BoardBuzz is enjoying a break this week as we pause to reflect on our good fortunes. Among them are our dedicated readers–now 5,000 strong. Thanks very much to each of you! See you next week.

Controversy is brewing in Utah over Wasatch Beers’ change of one of its beer labels from Unofficial Amber Ale to Evolution Amber Ale. According to the Deseret Morning News, “The company says the change is inspired by Utah legislators and the debate here and nationally over whether public school evolution lessons should be balanced with ‘intelligent design.’ … The new label features several images of monkeys walking more and more upright behind a man, carrying a six-pack and swigging from a bottle. A stamp mark says ‘Darwin Approved’ and ‘Created in 27 days, not 7.’”

BoardBuzz‘s reaction? TGIF.

In a surprise to many, the House of Representatives voted down the fiscal 2006 Labor-Health and Human Services-Education conference report Thursday. That bill contained cuts for the Department of Education.

Senators Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are expected to rename conferees so the reconciliation bill can be renegotiated to restore some earmarks and other programs stripped out of the defeated version. The 224-209 vote, with 22 Republicans breaking ranks, marked the first time in a decade that such a large annual spending bill has been rejected by the House so close to enactment. The bill’s defeat halted what had been a steady drive to complete annual appropriations bills freezing many agency budgets, the Wall Street Journal reports:

After a decade of steady growth, these programs would be cut by $1.4 billion below 2005 levels including rural health initiatives important to many Republicans.

To forestall deeper program cuts, Appropriations Committee leaders had stripped out more than $1 billion in lawmakers’ home-state projects. That made it harder to win over unhappy Republicans.

Insiders are pondering two possible outcomes: The adoption of a year-long continuing resolution for Labor-HHS-Education, or a renegotiated conference report that would be considered along with another appropriation bill, such as defense. The defense spending plan is not set to be considered until after Thanksgiving.

When should school board members get pay raises? Board members in Flagler County, Fla. are considering whether they deserve a 12 percent increase in pay next year. Currently, the five board members make $25,032 each year, but the Florida School Boards Association suggests the elected officials should be paid $27,964—an increase of $2,932 in each member’s paycheck, reports the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Board members in nearby Polk County, Fla., are also considering the issue.

A 2002 survey of 720 school districts by NSBA reveals that board members in two-thirds of those districts are not paid.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill Wednesday barring schools from requiring hyperactive children to use drug treatments as a condition for attending classes. “Backers say the bill was designed to curb anecdotal but troubling reports of officials telling parents that disruptive kids must begin drug treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in order to stay in school,” reports WebMD Medical News:

The bill easily passed 407-12, with one member voting “present,” but drew criticism from some lawmakers.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who is a psychiatrist, tells WebMD that the measure was “a bad bill.”

“Local school boards and districts are the ones who have to deal with these issues, not Congress,” he says. …

The House approved a similar bill in 2003 but the Senate never acted.

One enlightening way to proceed on anything related to ADHD is to spend 10 minutes making use of your favorite Internet search site, then reading what you find with a very critical eye. That’s because the truth can be found in the easily gleaned and often frenzied appeals of several well-funded advocacy organizations on all sides of the ADHD Wars. These groups have become expert at exploiting frustrated parents, and then in recent years of politicizing that pain to further their agendas. Schools are convenient but improper targets here. “Anecdotal but troubling” would describe the state of behavior of many in this debate. Especially of Congress.