Discuss the policy framework of IDEA and NCLB.

Topic – intentions of a policy formation

The article attached below “Paved with good intentions…” is a detailed policy analysis. The author reviews types of problems that inspire policies, the contents of policy proposals and the politics that accompany policy implementation and perceptions.

After reading this article: below is the content of your critical engagement with the policy and what is means.

Please concern the read questions below in your writing

                                      (3 pages)

1. What is a policy statement?
2. Discuss the policy framework of IDEA and NCLB.
3. From your experience as a teacher or as a student, what principles in NCLB and IDEA policies have been most influential in education? Why?
4. What principles would you change and what principles would you retain when outlining the overall educational direction of the country?  In your entry you can choose either IDEA or NCLB or both.

Attachments:

Oversight and Enforcement of IDEA and NCLB 279
incentives for “gaming the system.” He notes that similar problems can be projected for the
implementation of the new outcomes-based oversight and enforcement model in IDEA 2004.
Recommendation: The author recommends that Congress turn the accountability model in
NCLB “inside out,” establishing national standards, a single national performance assessment,
fixed and achievable targets for proficiency, and predefined subgroup sizes while
devolving responsibility for the details of the district- and school-level accountability system
to the states. In IDEA’s case, he recommends setting national targets for a small number of
outcome indicators while maintaining the current system of focused monitoring. He argues
that this model, in combination with federal incentives for meeting performance targets,
would provide for a more realistic and effective federal role in improving public education.
INTRODUCTION
In 2004, press reports on the implementation of the No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLB) began to highlight a widening rift between the federal
government and the states.1 In Utah, the Republican-dominated legislature
passed a law allowing state education laws and regulations to
trump NCLB. Connecticut filed a lawsuit challenging the law as an
unfunded mandate. Six states, including Arizona and Hawaii, considered
bills or resolutions to “opt-out” of the law by refusing federal Title I funding.2
And in a majority of states, legislators criticized the law and considered
resolutions or memorials requesting flexibility or waivers from its
requirements.
Much of this opposition was motivated by concerns about NCLB’s
“high-stakes” accountability mechanisms. NCLB compels states to test students
and sanction school districts and schools that are poor performers.
The law also requires the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to provide
oversight of state implementation of the law and punish states that
fail to fulfill the law’s requirements by withholding Title I funding.
According to NCLB’s architects in the Bush administration and
Congress, this focus on accountability for educational results was long
overdue. Upon signing NCLB, President Bush praised the law as a “new
path of reform and a new path of results.”3 His optimism about the law’s
prospects was shared by the many Congressional Democrats who had collaborated
with him to pass the bill. None of these early supporters of
NCLB expressed any reservations about the accountability provisions and
their potential effect on the relationship between the federal government
and states. None of them projected the level of controversy that
would be provoked by the federal role in the implementation of the law.
Had the framers of NCLB taken a look back and reflected on the
circumstances that accompanied the passage and implementation of280 Teachers College Record
another education law with an idealistic title, they might not have been
so optimistic. Like NCLB, this law passed both houses of Congress with
near-unanimous majorities. In a nation in which public education had
traditionally been the responsibility of states and local school districts, it
gave unprecedented oversight and enforcement powers to the federal
Department of Education.4 Its implementation provoked immediate controversy
and, in some cases, active resistance from states and school districts,
who decried it as an unfunded mandate and an unwelcome federal
intrusion into public education. One prominent critic asserted that the
law “promises more than the federal government can deliver . . . [and] contains a vast array of detailed, complex, and costly administrative
requirements which unnecessarily assert federal government control
over traditional state and local government functions.”5
The critic was President Gerald Ford, and the bill was PL 94-142—the
law that would later be titled the Individuals With Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA).6 Ford’s dour appraisal stood in sharp contrast to the enthusiasm
of the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers who had collaborated on
the bill’s passage. Like the framers of NCLB, they were convinced of the
virtue of their work. Congressman George Miller of California, later an
architect of NCLB, expressed the sentiments of many of his colleagues
when he praised IDEA as a civil rights and education reform that would
result in fundamental improvements in the lives of students with disabilities
(Hehir & Gamm, 1999).
These two perspectives, the reservations expressed by President Ford
about federal interference in public education and Miller’s support for
federal activism, have been a constant in the 30-year history of IDEA.
They have also characterized the response to NCLB. Yet, despite these
similarities, recent analysis of the initial federal role in the implementation
of NCLB displays a curious myopia regarding IDEA, making little or
no mention of special education policy—even when describing effects of
federal oversight similar to those identified by both critics and supporters
of IDEA (Center on Education Policy, 2004, 2005; Kim & Sunderman,
2004).