Californians learn, lobby in Washington
NSBA event draws 800 from around the country
Published: March 1, 2011
California school board members who traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National School Boards Association’s annual Federal Relations Network Conference last month got a detailed overview of federal education issues and visited their local elected representatives on Capitol Hill to discuss the impacts of three straight years of state budget cuts and the end of federal economic stimulus funding.
Joining some 800 other participants from across the country, California’s 27-member FRN delegation included CSBA’s executive committee and board members from school districts and county offices of education throughout the state. Representatives from CSBA’s Governmental Relations Department helped the delegation prepare for the Feb. 6–8 conference and scheduled the meetings with members of Congress and their staff that took place on the final day of the event.
Key issues addressed at FRN included:
- reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
- ensuring adequate funding for education programs, including full funding for federal mandates such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Title I—especially as federal stimulus funding ends
- advancing forward-looking initiatives in preschool education, teacher effectiveness, and education innovation
- promoting local governance and decision-making as keys to effective public education and student achievement in the 21st century
“It was a great trip,” said CSBA President Martha Fluor, a school board member in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. “The highlight for me was the opportunity to engage in a new level of dialogue with some new members of Congress. There were some discouraging moments, but overall it was very productive.”
ESEA reauthorization
One discouraging moment involved U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. In an intense session with him, FRN participants stressed the need to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was last updated early in the George W. Bush administration as No Child Left Behind. In the event Congress does not reauthorize ESEA this year, school board members urged Duncan to modify existing federal regulations to eliminate unproven and costly penalties for schools identified as failures under inflexible federal rules.
But Duncan refused to make any such commitment, promising instead to do everything possible to ensure that the federal law is reauthorized this year and that unfair school sanctions are eliminated as part of that process.
“We were really asking him how reauthorization was going,” Fluor said. “One member of the audience asked Duncan to at least agree to suspend the most punitive sanctions if we don’t have a reauthorization by June 30. He skirted the issue, which was disappointing.”
Federal education officials agree that there are problems with NCLB’s accountability system, according to CSBA Assistant Executive Director for Governmental Relations Rick Pratt. “Everyone recognizes that NCLB over-identifies schools as failing and imposes punitive penalties on them. That’s why we’re pushing for legislation to forestall this,” Pratt said.
Ironically, FRN’s final day coincided with the receipt in California of the latest example of NCLB’s excesses: Officials at Pleasanton Unified School District’s Pleasanton Middle School were notified Feb. 8 that the school fell into Program Improvement status because a change in student counting methods placed its Hispanic student subgroup below NCLB’s adequate yearly progress requirement in math—even though the school scored 932 on California’s Academic Performance Index.
House members to be home more often
CSBA President Fluor said she came away from the conference encouraged about changes in the House of Representatives calendar that guarantee each representative will be available to constituents in home-district offices at least one week every month, rather than just on weekends as had been customary in the past.
“This is good news for school board members,” Fluor said. “It’s vitally important that we make the case for public education with the people who control the purse strings and write the rules—both at the state and federal level—so meeting with members of Congress in their home districts can help us work with them, educate them and develop relationships.”
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