Lobbying Assignment #1,2, & 3.

Chris Cassise

#1 & 2

Lobbying against: No Child Left Behind Act

The act was proposed by George W. Bush to standards-based education reform, which is the belief that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals can improve individual outcomes in education. The Act requires states to develop assessments in basic skills to be given to all students in certain grades and does not assert a national achievement standard. These standards are set by each individual state.

The main goal of NCLB is to close the “achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.” Voting took place in 2001 with majority voting yes (87) and only 10 nays. Two republican senators from Pennsylvania voted yes on the bill.
More on the NCLB Act.

Arlen Sector was a republican senator since 1996 and voted yes to pass the No Child Left Behind Act when it was proposed in 2001. He also believes that this act needs to be reformed by supporting the Pathways to college act proposed to reform the educational and re-authorization of middle and high school success in education. In 2009, he switched parties to the Democratic side to try and get reelected. He was unsuccessful being defeated by current runner Joe Sestak.  
Rick Santorum was a former senator of Pennsylvania and voted yes to pass the No Child Left Behind Act also. He played a major role in the process of NCLB act being proposed and is now known for creating the Santorum Amendment. The Santorum Amdendment is in the modified bill and doesnt play a major part in the Act but is still considered the stepping stone in proposing the act. He came up with the “teach the controversy” campaign which implemented teaching science efficiently and teaching things that are still being debated.  He was defeated in 2006 by Bob Casey jr.





My defense:
Who is creating this test? Officials or the teachers? It takes away from the unique experience in class that officials who have no experience of situations with students choose to pick the educational process of learning and the tests that follow through their lives.

Some states dont even have as many writing questions because they lack funds. Gary Cook, Wisconsin’s former testing director, said “it could cost a thousand times more to score an essay question than a multiple-choice question.” In 2005, the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center reported that 15 states relied on multiple-choice questions in reading and math tests.

There is no evidence that this is succeeding as a program and it seems that it is just crippling school districts with funds that they do not have.

Evidence:

“A study classified elementary school students as "actively" engaged in learning if they went back over things they didn't understand and participated in understanding such questions” Students are able to skip hard questions and relate to the easy parts of the test which defeats the purpose helping students to learn better.

Schools are under pressure to show better test results which has cannibalized the curriculum. When students are judged on a multiple-choice test, teachers use multiple-choice exercises and in-class tests to curb a students understanding to the test, which takes away from the rigor of learning that a student is supposed to learn. A student shouldnt have to worry so highly and waste class time on learning to take a quiz or eliminating wrong answers to multiple choice questions.

Administrators have cut back vital parts of schooling such as:
Programs in the arts
Recess for young children
Electives for high schoolers
Class meetings discussions about current events since that material will not appear on the test



Supporters against NCLB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSTzLILQx3c


Senator Bob Casey jr.
Representative of Philadelphia’s 1st district.
Caseys statement on No Child Left Behind Act, a General Statement:
“Reforming the No Child Left Behind Legislation Washington's No Child Left Behind legislation is actually leaving millions of schoolchildren behind. As it stands now, No Child Left Behind is all stick and no carrot. Its combination of confusing federal mandates and gross under-funding threatens to undermine creative state and local efforts to improve our schools. In contrast, Bob Casey will work to provide our schools with the crucial assistance they need to meet high academic performance standards.”

Casey is hoping to create in support of other officials a reform act on No Child Left Behind to fix the problems that have occurred.

He has proposed The Pathways to College Act, with bipartisan sponsorship, is a bill designed to aid low-income and first generation students in their transition to secondary education by focusing attention on the importance of school counseling in the college and career planning process. This bill will provide funds to high school districts to invest in school counseling services to establish a college-going culture.

#3

1. What is the status of your issue at the legislature? Is this a "good" year?

This is a bad year in terms of my issue on NCLB. They are talking about making a reform of it and a lot of people believe on both sides of the political sphere that is has not worked as efficiently as expected. Senator Bob Casey jr. is coming up with another bill called the pathways to college act to curb an understanding and reform the NCLB act.

2. Who is essential to the outcome?

Who are the stakeholders in this issue? Who are the allies you need to have on board because they increase the power you have to move the issue? Which decision-makers do you need to move (committee chairs, legislation sponsors, etc)?

To make this outcome happen, we need more support from the republican side and a big part of this process was when Rick Santorum switched sides to support this NCLB act reform and go against his own belief when he voted for the NCLB back in 2001.

3. Who else is working on this? Can you coordinate?

Only Bob Casey jr as the public official of Pennsylvania.

4. Who can you influence?

I would try and influence the republicans more since the republicans proposed the bill back in 2001 and a lot still believe it. It wouldn’t be hard to have people more educated with the problems this bill is causing through statistics.

5. What is the time frame?

There is no time frame.

6. When are key dates - meetings, committee hearings, deadlines, etc.

There are no key dates or meetings thus far this year.

Sources:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h107-1

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/education/no_child/basics.html

http://www.arizonaea.org/politics.php?page=282&sub_page=252

http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html