WHEREAS, on January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now termed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002; and
WHEREAS, the No Child Left Behind Act represents an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government into public K-12 school accountability traditionally left to individual states; and
WHEREAS, the No Child Left Behind Act establishes national requirements for the creation of student academic achievement standards, annual assessments of students’ progress towards meeting those standards, sanctions against schools for their students’ failure to make “adequate yearly progress,” school and district report cards, and minimum qualifications for licensed teachers and “paraprofessional” educators (instructional assistants); and
WHEREAS, the enactment of Oregon’s Educational Act for the 21st Century in 1991 established state-imposed grade-level benchmarks and academic achievement standards, statewide assessment of student performance in core subject areas, and annual school and district report cards; and
WHEREAS, since then, Oregon schools and students have made significant progress in achieving these higher standards of student academic achievement.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE
IT RESOLVED that the membership of the Oregon School Boards Association urges the state Department of Education and the state Board of Education, in the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, to recognize the significant school improvement progress Oregon has made over the last decade and to grant maximum local flexibility in meeting these new federal requirements; and
BE IT FURTHER
RESOLVED, that the membership of the Oregon School Boards Association urges the state Department of Education and the state Board of Education to aggressively pursue any and all available federal waivers from the regulatory requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act to assure the ability of Oregon’s 198 school districts to respond to their unique local operational and instructional needs and circumstances.
Submitted by: OSBA
Board of Directors
Resolutions Committee recommendation: Do Pass
Membership Action: Unanimously adopted at Nov. 16, 2002, Annual
Meeting
