Giving NCLB an A-PLUS boost: the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act would promote greater local control in education while maintaining accountability through state-level testing and information reporting to parents to ensure transparency

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 2008 by Dan Lips

One of the four pillars of the While House's original No Child Left Behind proposal was to reduce bureaucracy and increase flexibility: "Additional flexibility will be provided to states and school districts, and flexible funding will be increased at the local level." The proposal called for a charter state option to allow states and districts with quality accountability systems to enter into performance agreements with the Secretary of Education. Under these agreements, states would be freed from categorical program requirements and could use funding on new state-directed initiatives.

However, this proposal to improve state-level autonomy and flexibility was not included in the No Child Left Behind Act that emerged from Congress. Instead, the law included a modest "ed-flex" provision to allow states to apply for the limited ability to redirect funding between existing Federal programs. This is very limited flexibility compared to the original state charter option that substantially would have altered the relationship between the states and the Federal government.

Senators Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) and John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R.-Mich.) have introduced similar versions of a bill known as the A-PLUS Act. Both versions fundamentally would reform the relationship between the states and the Federal government in K-12 education and restore state and local control in education, while maintaining the focus on improving academic achievement by protecting state-level academic standards and testing.

The stated purpose of the Senate version of the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act is:

* "To give States and local communities maximum freedom to determine how to boost academic achievement and implement education reforms."

* "To reduce the administrative costs and compliance burden of Federal education programs to focus Federal resources on improving academic achievement."

* "To ensure that States and communities are accountable to the public for advancing the academic achievement of all students, especially disadvantaged children."

Under this act, each state (and the District of Columbia and all U.S. territories) would have the opportunity to enter into a five-year performance agreement with the Secretary of Education. Under the terms of the performance agreement, the state would have the opportunity to be exempt from all Federal program requirements under No Child Left Behind if it supplied certain information and maintained the terms of the agreement.

Specifically, the state would be required to identify which programs and funding streams it will consolidate and to outline how it will use the funds to further state education priorities, improve student achievement, and narrow achievement gaps. The performance agreement would require approval from two of three state authorities: the governor, state legislature, and the state education agency. If these terms were met, the Secretary of Education would be required to approve the performance agreement.