MEASURES TO REFORM EDUCATION GET MIXED REVIEWS

Last spring, Y-Press surveyed 550 young people in the Indianapolis area about what political issues matter most. The majority cited education.

They are not alone. Lawmakers value education as well.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., credits education for much of his success.

"My mother was an immigrant, and she and my father only went to the eighth grade," he said. "But they really believed in education, and, luckily, I had a chance to go to good schools and get the education that brought me to this point in life. But if you don't have that chance, if you don't have a good school, and you're not getting encouraged and helped to succeed, it's tough to succeed in America."

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., agrees.

"(Americans) are committed to as much equality at the starting line of life as possible. That's fundamental."

Many Americans, however, are not getting the education they need.

While 85 percent of Americans age 25 and older have graduated from high school, only 57 percent of Hispanics in the same age group have done so; only 11 percent have attended college.

Further, while dropout rates have plummeted in the last 30 years, Latino teens are twice as likely as blacks and three times as likely as whites to drop out of school.

Without an education, it is statistically much more difficult to attain financial security.

According to the College Board, a not-for-profit association that administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test and Advanced Placement exams, the median yearly income for workers with a bachelor's degree in 2003 was $49,000. For those with only a high school diploma, it was $30,800.

No Child Left Behind

In 2001, lawmakers passed the No Child Left Behind Act. The law, backed by the Bush administration, sets academic and safety standards schools must meet to receive Title I federal money for disadvantaged students.

The bill had bipartisan support in Congress, and President Bush has cited it frequently during the campaign.

Sen. John Kerry voted for the law but complains that it has been seriously underfunded.

If elected, Kerry promises to fully fund it and establish a national education trust fund to provide money for other initiatives, such as teacher training and after-school programming.

But Kerry does not disagree with the spirit of the approach to solve public-school problems.

U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige said No Child Left Behind "is a serious expression of the president's and Congress' attitudes toward changing the culture of public education. The minority kids, the limited English proficient kids, the special education kids were not getting the services that they need. And that's what we're trying to do, provide services for them."

Under the law, an extension of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965, states must measure every student's progress in reading and math in public schools that receive federal funding.

Children are tested annually in grades 3 through 8 and at least once in grades 10 through 12. The schools must issue detailed public reports on student success rates.

If, for two years in a row, a school fails to make what its state determines is "adequate yearly progress," it must provide help, such as tutoring, or allow its students to transfer to other schools, providing transportation.

By 2013, every student at schools receiving federal funds must pass the state's achievement tests or risk losing these national funds.

Paige cites improved fourth-grade test scores as proof the law works. The tests were administered in early 2003, six months after the law took effect.

"We made more progress than in the eight years combined of the previous administration," he said.

However, critics say that not enough time lapsed between implementation of the law and the testing date for the scores to be an accurate indicator of success.

Hoosier reforms

Indiana has a more stringent approach to education reform. Public Law 221, which preceded No Child Left Behind but also took effect in the 2002-2003 school year, ties adequate yearly progress to attendance and graduation rates as well as test scores.

ISTEP, Indiana's statewide standardized test, is given to ensure standards are met. And, as under the federal reform law, students attending schools in which test scores remain low for two consecutive years are allowed to transfer within the same district or seek remediation services.

But Public Law 221 applies to every school in Indiana, not just those receiving Title I funding.

While under the federal law schools must increase their pass rates on standardized tests to meet state benchmarks, state schools must continually improve their own performance.

In fact, there is wide criticism of No Child Left Behind.

Dan Kaufman, a researcher for the National Education Association, appreciates that the law targets at-risk populations.

However, he calls it a poor indicator of actual school performance, and says it doesn't provide the resources students need to succeed.

"It measures the progress of students in schools by just looking at two test scores in one day once a year rather than looking at a lot of other ways," he said.

Kaufman fears also that the law's accountability requirements might misrepresent school performance.

"There are at least 37 different ways a school or a school district can fail," he said. "They may be just falling short by a little bit, but they don't make the standards for that year. The entire school, or even the entire school district, can be declared failing. And those schools and school districts that are known for being good with good teachers and good principals are being put in the same group as those that do need a lot of help."

Kaufman's other criticism, shared by many others, is that No Child Left Behind leaves schools without adequate funding by creating a huge testing bureaucracy, which siphons funding for other important programs, such as foreign language and arts classes.

And, he said, failing schools lose federal funding but still must pay for students who want to transfer, further depleting funds for needy schools.

Sarah Mulhern, an 18-year-old from Utah who was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, shares his concern.

"The idea that we'll find out which schools are failing and take funding away from the ones that are having trouble as a motivator; it's not like they're not trying to do better," she said. "They're failing because they don't have the proper support and resources. All it does is widen the gap between schools that are stellar and schools that tend to fall behind."

"Don't you want to know if their students are learning or not?" Paige said. "The only way you can know that is to test them. If you don't test them, you're saying, 'I don't really care if you know it or not. Let me just go out and tell the people that you are learning.' No, that's not the way it should be. We test them because we care about them."

More money needed?

Both Kerry and Kaufman agree that about $27 billion more is needed to provide resources schools need to properly implement the federal reform.

Democrats are not the only ones who think schools are being shorted.

Many conservative Republicans also have expressed concern about the federal government's issuing mandates for states but not providing sufficient resources or flexibility.

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., is one of them.

Burton did not vote for No Child Left Behind, fearing it would take power away from local government. Though control of education has remained with states, Burton is one of the many conservatives who disagreed with the administration's policy.

"We should never start a program unless we're going to adequately fund it," he said, and in this case, the funding "is not up to where it's supposed to be."

Paige counters that the president has provided more money for education than any previous president and claims that education spending is up 35 percent in the last four years.

Kaufman suggests that the federal government increase school spending all around.

"We know that the federal government right now is spending less than 3 cents on every dollar on education. If we only spent 5 cents on every dollar, we could have the money that we need. We could pretty much create small class sizes, highly trained teachers, up-to-date textbooks and technology and school buildings, early-childhood and after-school programs for all students, regardless of where they live."

Lugar looks to teachers and other education professionals to find solutions.

"I try to find (out) from educators how best we can inject the money, how much money is required, and how we can at least have some hope of reforming the idea that every child could succeed at a certain level, which will be required if that person is to be a successful citizen."

Contributors include: Jordan Denari, 14; Andy Goldblatt, 16; Ali Rader, 14; Izaak Hayes, 14; Peter De Paolo, 14; Brian Reissaus, 18; Chad Dyar, 15; Allison Gardner, 14; Katie Bolinger, 14; and Katie McDowell, 11.

Who we are

Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization with offices in The Indianapolis Star building. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call (317) 444-2010 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

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