Two partisan ESEA reauthorization bills unveiled in Senate, mixed bag for afterschool and summer learning

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)—chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee—along with the support of all of the Democrats on the Committee, has posted an Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization bill to replace the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.  The committee is expected to discuss and mark up the bill tomorrow. A Republican bill, Every Child Ready for College or Career Act, led by HELP Committee Ranking Member Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), was released late last week.

Chairman Harkin’s bill, the Strengthening America’s Schools Act of 2013, supports teachers and principals to help provide high-quality instruction, ensures disadvantaged students get the supports they need to succeed, and focuses federal attention on supporting states and districts in turning around low-performing schools and closing achievement gaps.

 

With regard to the 21^st Century Community Learning Centers (21^st CCLC) initiative the bill is very similar to the one that passed the Committee in the fall of 2011. Our main concern is that in an era of sequestration and budget cuts, the language in the bill will dilute and divert much-needed afterschool dollars to pay for a longer school day.  In addition, the bill would allow 21^st CCLC to fund activities normally funded by local education agencies such as teacher planning time and more time in a traditional classroom.   It would also allow the funds to be used for wholescale school redesign, which could be an expensive drain on a stretched funding stream.   There are other ways to fund a longer school day without cutting afterschool programming and these are included in  Sen. Harkin’s bill.   Currently, more than $13 billion in federal funding through Title I, Race to the Top, School Improvements Grants and I3 grants are already available to fund a longer school day. 

We do applaud changes in the bill that allow for better reporting and data sharing between schools and community based organizations working with students.  Specifically Section 4107 of the bill, which addresses 21^st CCLC, states:  

Like the 2011 Senate ESEA legislation, eligible entities will have the option of applying for funds to provide afterschool, summer learning and before-school programming; adding time to the school day, week or year for academics, enrichment and engagement; and/or comprehensively redesigning and expanding the school day, week or year to provide more academics, enrichment, and teacher and staff professional development.

 

Amendment language from the 2011 version has been included in Harkin’s new bill in order to prevent a federal preference or priority on which approach (afterschool, summer learning, expanded learning for some students, expanded learning for all students). The bill also includes a stronger requirement for partnerships between school districts and community-based organizations and public entities, with only a narrow exception for rural communities for whom the requirement would be a significant hardship.  By requiring partnerships the bill goes further than current law, which only prioritizes such partnerships.  The local education agencies or nonprofit and public partners can be the lead fiscal agent on 21^st CCLC grants.  The bill also requires collection, reporting and sharing of data and outcomes between school and community partners to inform implementation and focus programming, an area that needed improvement from current law.

 

While the 21^st CCLC section of the legislation represents an improvement over many of the prior proposals to replace funding for afterschool programs with funding for a longer school day, concerns remain over the language within the bill that allows 21^st CCLC funds to be used for expensive, whole-scale school redesign—an initiative that is also funded elsewhere in the bill through School Improvement Grants. Specifically, there is the real possibility under this legislation that 21^st CCLC funds would be diverted to school reform and lengthening school days by an hour per day at the expense of providing quality afterschool programs for children an average of 14 hours per week.  With 15 million children already unsupervised during the hours of 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., policies that could add to the number of unsupervised children should be avoided.

 

Elsewhere in the legislation, the STEM Master Teacher Corps program includes the option of afterschool STEM education (Sec. 4225); the financial literacy section allows afterschool financial literacy education (Sec. 4312); and the Successful, Safe and Healthy Students section calls for collaboration with before- and afterschool programming to keep young people safe and provide physical activity and mental health services (Sec. 4404).  With regard to youth development, the reauthorization bill  addresses conditions for learning, with support for bullying prevention, positive discipline, character development, social and emotional learning, family engagement, youth violence prevention, mental health, and physical activity. A new "whole school" model that embraces the community school philosophy is added to the school turnaround interventions. More information on the bill is available here.

 

While the bill will likely pass committee next week—its prospects for passing on the Senate floor are dim without bipartisan support.  A recent tracking survey found that 87 percent of education policy insiders believe ESEA reauthorization will occur after January 2015.  The Harkin bill is partisan and differs considerably from the approach of Sen. Alexander’s bill, which scales back federal involvement in education. The Every Child Ready for College or Career Act would consolidate and effectively eliminate the 21^st CCLC initiative along with more than 60 other ESEA programs as part of a flexible block grant that allows school districts to determine whether to fund afterschool programs or a variety of other programs from parent engagement to physical education and school counseling after conducting a needs assessment.

The House Education and the Workforce Committee also plans to mark up separate Republican and Democratic versions of a ESEA reauthorization bill on June 19. A blog looking at the House ESEA process will follow shortly.

 

Friends of afterschool can email representatives and senators to emphasize the value and importance of afterschool and summer learning programs through June as the education committees discuss ESEA.