Senate Approves Landmark Education Reform Legislation
December 18, 2001

Washington, DC - The U.S. Senate today approved a $26.5 billion education reform measure that demands new accountability for low-performing schools and provides assistance for the nation's most needy students.

The legislation, the most sweeping federal school bill since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, creates new testing and accountability systems and also adds new literacy, after-school and teacher quality initiatives. The bill also features several provisions authored by Senator Feinstein including the better direction of Title I funds to reflect the real number of poor students, the formation of a new "master" teacher program, creating smaller school environments and enhancements to the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act.

The House overwhelmingly approved the measure last week and President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law early next year.

The following is Senator Feinstein's statement on the legislation:

"The bipartisan education bill puts in place some strong and unprecedented reforms to make our schools more accountable and help students learn. For the public, this bill helps assure that our schools get real results and that we know what those results are. Additionally, California's public schools will be helped by this bill.

To bolster student achievement, this bill includes several needed reforms, tying the receipt of federal funds to getting results. The legislation:

• Continues the current requirement that states must have academic standards for reading and math and adds a requirement that states establish standards for science.
  
  
• Requires schools to assure that students make continuous and substantial academic improvement and that students reach a proficient level within twelve years.
  
  
• Requires states to measure student achievement by testing every student in grades 3-8 annually in reading and math based on state standards, by 2005-2006.
  
  
• Requires greater accountability so that schools that fail for two consecutive years to make adequate yearly progress must be identified for improvement and also must identify specific steps to improve student performance.
  
  
• Requires that a failing school must offer public school choice and provide supplemental services after three years. After four years, a school must take corrective actions such as replacing staff or implementing a new curriculum. After five years, a failing school must undertake major restructuring. The bill provides $500 million to help turn around low-performing schools.
  
  
• Authorizes grants to states for teacher certification, recruitment, and retention services with the goal of improving teacher quality. States must assure that all teachers are qualified by 2006.
  
  
• Authorizes $1.25 billion in 2002 and up to $2.5 billion in 2007 for after-school programs remedial education, tutoring and other services to improve student achievement.
  
  
• Requires public "report cards," which will report on academic achievement, graduation rates and the names of failing schools.

There are many other important initiatives and reforms.

Another important feature of this bill is that it better directs federal funds to disadvantaged students than does current law. Here are some examples:

• The bill requires that for the largest federal education program, Title I, Aid to the Disadvantaged, the poor children count be updated every year instead of every two years under current law. This is very important to California, a state that has a higher than average poverty rate and high growth in the number of low-income children.
  
  
• The bill requires that more funds be funneled to states and districts using the targeted grant formula, which is focused on concentrations of poverty, areas like Los Angeles, San Diego and other major cities. California is expected to receive a larger share of targeted grant funding than under current law because of its concentrated child poverty enrollment.
  
  
• The bill also shifts bilingual and immigrant education funding from a competitive grant program to a formula grant program based on the number of children. California has a very high proportion of limited-English proficient and newly-immigrant children and should be greatly helped by this change.

These are welcomed changes and should send the resources to where the needs are. Today, the federal government provides only seven percent of total education funding, but the strength of this bill is that it tries to leverage the federal share to prod states and school districts to make schools responsible for real results. I believe the bill offers hope and resources to California's students, school officials, parents and the public.

California's schools are facing huge challenges. California has a projected enrollment rate triple that of the national rate. Unfortunately, many California students perform poorly compared to students in many other states. California has some of the largest classes in the nation. California has overcrowded and substandard facilities and 30,000 uncredentialed teachers.

I am sorry to say that thirty-four percent of California's schools that participate in Title I are identified for improvement compared to the national average of nineteen percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Only twenty percent of California's fourth grade students are proficient in reading, ranking thirty-six out of thirty-nine states. California ranks thirty-two out of thirty-six states for proficient eighth graders in reading, at twenty-two percent.

Nationally, our students are falling behind their counterparts in other countries:

• In literacy, fifty-eight percent of United States high school graduates rank below an international literacy standard, dead last among the twenty-nine countries that participated.
  
  
• U.S. eighth graders scored significantly lower in mathematics and science than their peers in fourteen of the thirty-eight participating countries.
  
  
• The percentage of teachers in the United States that feel they are "very well prepared" to teach science in the classroom is twenty-seven percent. The international average is twice that, peaking at fifty-six percent.
  
  
• U.S. students' knowledge of civic activities ranked third out of the twenty-eight countries that participated. However, those same students have been slipping in scores relating to math and science.

The final bill also includes several initiatives that I suggested:

1. Title I Funding: I have long argued that Title I should reflect the real numbers of poor students. This bill retains the requirement that the poor child count be updated every year. Additionally, the bill better targets funds on concentrations of poor children, which should particularly help our urban school districts, like Los Angeles.

2. Master Teachers: The bill allows funds under the teacher training title to create "exemplary" or "master" teachers who could mentor and guide less-experienced teachers, in an effort to keep new teachers in teaching. This is an outgrowth of my bill, S. 120.

3. Title I Audit: The bill requires the Inspector General to conduct of audit to determine how Title I funds are used and the degree to which they are used for academic instruction. The Senate had accepted my amendment to better direct Title I funds to academic activities and away from things like playground supervisors. While the limitations of my amendment are not included in the final bill, the required audit will help us determine specifically whether Title I funds are being used to help students learn.

4. Small Schools: The bill allows the use of Innovative Education funds to create smaller learning environments. While the final bill does not include my amendment that puts in place certain school-size requirements, as a condition for receiving funds, it does move that direction and recognize that smaller schools produce more learning.

5. Gun-Free Schools Clarification: The bill includes several clarifications of the current Gun-Free Schools Act, the 1994 law which requires a one-year expulsion for students who "bring" a gun to school. This bill (1) includes students who "possess" a gun at school; (2) clarifies that the term "school" means the entire school campus, any setting under the control and supervision of the local school district; and (3) requires that all modifications of expulsions be put in writing. These are important clarifications to the law, the need for which was highlighted by an Inspector General's report on the implementation of that law.

This bill makes some of the most profound revisions to federal education policy since ESEA was first enacted in 1965. It is an important reform designed to help students learn, achieve and in fact, excel.

The bill authorizes significant new funding. For example, Title I's authorized funding would grow from $13.5 billion in FY 2002 to $25 billion in 2007. Now the challenge is to provide those funds so that this bill will not be an empty promise. The children of this nation deserve no less."

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