No Child Left Behind Reform Act

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce legislation to jump-start the chances for success of low-income children entering school. Today, I am introducing the Sandy Feldman Kindergarten Plus Act of 2010.

The Kindergarten Plus Act will provide children below 185 percent of the poverty line with additional time in school during the summers before and after the traditional kindergarten school year to ensure more children enter school ready to succeed.

Too many low-income children enter school unprepared because they have not had the same resources as their more affluent peers. As exhibited by the nation's achievement gap which is already well- established prior to kindergarten, it becomes difficult for them to ever catch-up.

We must do a better job of preparing less fortunate children for school. To do this, we should expose them to classroom practices, introduce them to critical educational concepts, and familiarize them with school activities such as story time or circle time. Ultimately, we need to provide them with a solid foundation that allows them to enter school with the skills necessary to become strong students.

Only 39 percent of low-income children, compared to about 85 percent of high-income children, can recognize letters of the alphabet upon arrival in kindergarten. Moreover, low-income children often have a more limited vocabulary. By the time they are in first grade, children in low-income families have on average 5,000 words in their vocabulary. In contrast, children from more affluent families enter school with vocabularies of about 20,000 words. These startling discrepancies should tell us that more needs to be done to help all children enter school with an equal opportunity for success. This legislation strives to provide these opportunities and to lessen the achievement gap by giving low-income children more support and exposure to quality education.

This legislation was named after Sandy Feldman who was a tireless advocate for children and public education. Her commitment to social justice and her focus on early childhood education led her to develop the concept for this legislation, and it was Sandy who spent countless hours developing the details to ensure this would be a high-quality initiative.

This bill is supported by the American Federation of Teachers. I urge my colleagues to join this effort and cosponsor this legislation. I encourage them to help give low-income children a jump-start on school success. .

Mr. President, 9 years ago I and many of my colleagues supported the No Child Left Behind Act because every American child deserves an education that opens up opportunities for success and prepares him or her for the 21st century economy.

Today, because the high hopes we had for this law have not been realized, I rise to reintroduce the No Child Left Behind Reform Act.

The objective of the law we passed nearly a decade ago was the right one. Students, parents, teachers, principals, and other stakeholders all agree that educators and schools should be held accountable for the results they are getting on behalf of our children.

But instead of rewarding excellence, No Child Left Behind has turned out to be a law that punishes our schools, further straining those that already were in need of help. At times, the law has been implemented rigidly and with little regard for what is actually going on in schools. The previous administration's repeated failure to live up to funding promises has robbed our efforts to improve our education system of the resources that would make success possible.

We can have accountability without a regime of draconian punishments for schools that fall behind. What we cannot have is an inflexible and unfunded mandate that fails school districts, teachers, and, worst of all, the very students whose futures are at stake.

Although the legislation I am introducing today does not deal with the issue of funding, I do want to note that it simply will not work if we treat education as anything less than an urgent budget priority. This administration has made a solid commitment to education funding, and I was pleased to see that commitment bear fruit in the form of funding through the Recovery Act.

I am also heartened to see that the administration supports comprehensive reform of No Child Left Behind. Reform does not mean repeal. The fundamental aim of the law was right. Accountability is as important now as it was when we passed the law.

The two main reforms my legislation makes are designed to enforce accountability with measures that accurately reflect student performance and to encourage better teacher performance without the imposition of mandates that make it harder to ensure that students are taught by qualified and dedicated educators.

First, my legislation will allow schools to be given credit for performing well on measures other than test scores when calculating student achievement.

Test scores are important measures of what students know. But they are not the only, or even necessarily the best, measures of how much progress a school's student body has made. Dropout rates, participation in advanced placement courses, individual student improvement over time--these are metrics that can tell us not just where students are, but how far they have come.

Unfortunately, current law only allows these measures to show how schools are failing, not to reflect how schools are succeeding. When more kids are taking advanced courses or fewer are dropping out, a school is doing something right--and it should receive credit for doing so.

Second, my legislation reforms the teacher certification process.

The next student, parent, or, indeed, teacher I meet who does not believe educators should be highly qualified will be the first. But under the current law, ``highly qualified'' is poorly defined.

For instance, a high school science teacher could be required to hold degrees in biology, physics, and chemistry to be considered highly qualified. In small schools where there may be only one 7th or 8th grade teacher teaching all subjects, these teachers could similarly be required to hold degrees in every subject area.

The result is a shortage of teachers and a surplus of confusion.

My bill will allow states to create a single assessment covering multiple subjects for middle school teachers and allow states to issue a broad certification for science and social studies.

No Child Left Behind was supposed to challenge our schools to do better. Instead, it has become an obstacle to progress, a struggle that often distracts from the business of education. As we reauthorize the law--and we should--we must reform it so that it encourages students, educators, and school administrators to do better instead of punishing them when they fall behind.

Every American child deserves to be taught by a great teacher in a great school. Until we reach that goal, we must always dedicate our time and resources towards helping students succeed. Until our laws are moving us towards that goal, we must continue to reform them.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce the Mentoring America's Children Act of 2010, which will help promote positive youth development for children.

Approximately 17.6 million young people, which is nearly half the population between ages 10 and 18, live in situations that put them at risk of not living up to their potential. Without intervention by caring adults, these young people could make choices that undermine their future as well as the economic and social well-being of our Nation.

Mentoring programs that provide youth with support, advice, friendship, positive reinforcement, and constructive examples have proved to be a powerful tool for enhancing positive development among youth. I, myself, was a mentor in the Big Brother Program in Connecticut, and I saw first-hand the impact these programs have on the children involved. Research has found that mentored youth have fewer school absences, better attitudes towards school, less drug and alcohol abuse, fewer incidents of hitting, better relationships with their parents, and more positive attitudes towards helping others. Mentored youth are also more likely to graduate from high school and go on to higher education. Thus, mentoring invests not only in the individual child, but our Nation's future success. However, approximately 14.6 million young people are in need of mentors; they are part of what we call our nation's ``mentoring gap.''

The Mentoring America's Children Act of 2010 amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 ESEA, in order to strengthen the mentoring program is several ways. First, it will update the purpose of the program to include character education and school connectedness, which has been found to reduce school absentee rates and improve academic performance. This bill broadens the scope of mentoring to include special populations such as indigenous youth, delinquent and neglected populations, and programs targeting middle and high school migrant youth. All of these special populations are at increased risk of not reaching their potential.

The Mentoring America's Children Act of 2010 also provides training and technical assistance to grantees, tracks student outcomes, and improves the sustainability of grant recipients. Finally, it strengthens the research related to school-based mentoring to help inform future mentoring programs in order to best meet the needs of our youth.

Mentoring plays a key role in improving the lives of youth, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is critical that we invest in our youth and help provide them with the opportunities to reach their potential. Thus, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Mentoring America's Children Act of 2010. Together we can invest in the lives of our youth and improve the future of our nation.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about legislation that I have introduced today in the Senate. The name of the bill is the Fiscally Responsible Relief for Our States Act of 2010.

As you know, over the past week, the Senate has vigorously debated three different versions of the extenders bill, and we will be debating a version of it again today. Even though it is true each of these packages contained extensions of programs important to all of our constituents, especially in these tough economic times--such as emergency unemployment benefits, which I know we are trying to work on again today; increased FMAP reimbursements; and funding for summer jobs for the youth throughout America--it is also true that each of these packages contained billions of dollars of tax increases for businesses, and each added billions to our record $13 trillion and rising national debt which our kids and grandkids and great-grandchildren will have a difficult time paying back, and they will have the responsibility to pay it back.

A lot of what I am proposing today in this bill, and other bills that we will probably be discussing, is whether we should use our bank account or we should put it on our credit card. That is all we are talking about. We are not talking about the viability of these proposals. Of course we want to help with summer jobs. Of course we want to help people who are hurting with unemployment insurance. Of course we want to provide FMAP and Medicaid reimbursements to help our struggling States. But do we use our checking account or do we use the credit card? I am in favor of using the checking account by using unallocated stimulus dollars, by finding other monies that are in the so-called slush funds that haven't been used in years or are still available or cutting across the board in various entities to come up with the money we need to fund these programs.

As I said, no one is disputing the value of these very important programs, especially in my home State of

Massachusetts, but throughout the country as well. Our economy has shown signs of slowly recovering, but people out of work certainly need some help to search for new employment and, as I said, States need help in providing funding for some of the most vulnerable in our population. But we also have to make tough choices, and we have to live within our means.

It is clear the American people want their elected Representatives in Congress to start paying for the initiatives and start exercising the type of fiscal responsibility as each and every citizen in Massachusetts and in America is already doing. They are looking to us for guidance to show a better way. They are challenging us to do it better, to look outside the box and pay for things with the checking account, not the credit card; to not continue to add to the debt, continuously adding to the debt.

As evidenced by what the Banking Committee chairman did--and he is sitting in the Chamber of the Senate--they thought about it a little better. They found a way to pay for the financial reform bill. They did better. They thought outside the box. Why can't we do the same?

Today I introduce the Fiscally Responsible Relief for Our States Act of 2010. It provides for an extension of emergency unemployment benefits through November 30, 2010. It also includes extension of enhanced FMAP reimbursements for States. But also, as has been previously discussed, it includes the gradual drawdown of the enhanced funding because we need to send a clear message to the State governments that they must get their own fiscal houses in order and they cannot always come to the Federal Government with a can saying: Please help us. So we need to ensure that we do the necessary reforms to ensure their future budgetary viability is real and so is that of the Federal Government.

Last, this proposal I am making provides important summer jobs-- obviously summer is just starting--for the youth in our cities and towns.

The cost of extending these programs is fully paid for through the rescission of unobligated Federal funds including stimulus funding as well as cuts in other areas. In fact, my legislation reduces the deficit, all of this accomplished without raising taxes on businesses at a time they cannot afford it, or when our economy is just about to recover, putting more and more burdens on businesses and individuals in the middle of a 2-year recession. Some of these pay-fors are even provisions the majority party has supported in previous bills.

My legislation is an attempt to compromise, listening to the concerns of so many Americans who have called for us to extend these programs but also taking into consideration not burdening future generations. Some of them are sitting right here. It will allow us to provide for the needs of our citizens without putting more debt on the credit card. Once again, it is the checking account versus the credit card. Commending Senator Dodd for what they did with the bill we are going to be discussing next week, that is a perfect example of thinking outside the box and finding a way to pay for a lot of these things we are trying to do. If we use these commonsense steps, we can get our fiscal house in order, and we will continue to put our country on the path to recovery.

Madam President, I have great respect for you and everyone in this Chamber. I have been in Washington a little over 5 months now. I have been following you and others--it seems that everybody is following my voting record. It speaks for itself in that I worked to work across party lines to solve problems. But the thing that is a problem is, it needs to be a two-way street. Bipartisanship is not just from the new Senator from Massachusetts. It needs to be with the majority party looking outside the box, as Senator Dodd and his team did, to find a realistic solution to pay for a lot of these things the people are requesting, that they expect. But they also expect us to use fiscal sanity and fiscal responsibility to do our very best, to get the job done. It is not only good for Massachusetts, it is good for this Nation.

Mr. President, 9 years ago I and many of my colleagues supported the No Child Left Behind Act because every American child deserves an education that opens up opportunities for success and prepares him or her for the 21st century economy.

Today, because the high hopes we had for this law have not been realized, I rise to reintroduce the No Child Left Behind Reform Act.

The objective of the law we passed nearly a decade ago was the right one. Students, parents, teachers, principals, and other stakeholders all agree that educators and schools should be held accountable for the results they are getting on behalf of our children.

But instead of rewarding excellence, No Child Left Behind has turned out to be a law that punishes our schools, further straining those that already were in need of help. At times, the law has been implemented rigidly and with little regard for what is actually going on in schools. The previous administration's repeated failure to live up to funding promises has robbed our efforts to improve our education system of the resources that would make success possible.

We can have accountability without a regime of draconian punishments for schools that fall behind. What we cannot have is an inflexible and unfunded mandate that fails school districts, teachers, and, worst of all, the very students whose futures are at stake.

Although the legislation I am introducing today does not deal with the issue of funding, I do want to note that it simply will not work if we treat education as anything less than an urgent budget priority. This administration has made a solid commitment to education funding, and I was pleased to see that commitment bear fruit in the form of funding through the Recovery Act.

I am also heartened to see that the administration supports comprehensive reform of No Child Left Behind. Reform does not mean repeal. The fundamental aim of the law was right. Accountability is as important now as it was when we passed the law.

The two main reforms my legislation makes are designed to enforce accountability with measures that accurately reflect student performance and to encourage better teacher performance without the imposition of mandates that make it harder to ensure that students are taught by qualified and dedicated educators.

First, my legislation will allow schools to be given credit for performing well on measures other than test scores when calculating student achievement.

Test scores are important measures of what students know. But they are not the only, or even necessarily the best, measures of how much progress a school's student body has made. Dropout rates, participation in advanced placement courses, individual student improvement over time--these are metrics that can tell us not just where students are, but how far they have come.

Unfortunately, current law only allows these measures to show how schools are failing, not to reflect how schools are succeeding. When more kids are taking advanced courses or fewer are dropping out, a school is doing something right--and it should receive credit for doing so.

Second, my legislation reforms the teacher certification process.

The next student, parent, or, indeed, teacher I meet who does not believe educators should be highly qualified will be the first. But under the current law, ``highly qualified'' is poorly defined.

For instance, a high school science teacher could be required to hold degrees in biology, physics, and chemistry to be considered highly qualified. In small schools where there may be only one 7th or 8th grade teacher teaching all subjects, these teachers could similarly be required to hold degrees in every subject area.

The result is a shortage of teachers and a surplus of confusion.

My bill will allow states to create a single assessment covering multiple subjects for middle school teachers and allow states to issue a broad certification for science and social studies.

No Child Left Behind was supposed to challenge our schools to do better. Instead, it has become an obstacle to progress, a struggle that often distracts from the business of education. As we reauthorize the law--and we should--we must reform it so that it encourages students, educators, and school administrators to do better instead of punishing them when they fall behind.

Every American child deserves to be taught by a great teacher in a great school. Until we reach that goal, we must always dedicate our time and resources towards helping students succeed. Until our laws are moving us towards that goal, we must continue to reform them.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation.