Iowa public schools have earned a national reputation for educational excellence. Appropriately, Iowa educators, parents and administrators take pride in their hometown schools. And particularly in rural areas, where the public school often defines a community and in some cases helps anchor the local economy, setting and meeting high academic standards has long been the rule rather than the exception. By offering a first class education and expecting high student achievement, Iowa public schools work hard to stay accountable to parents, taxpayers and the students they serve.
However, it would be a mistake to suggest there is no room for improvement. Complacency can lead to mediocrity or worse. And a newly signed national education policy ought to help local schools in Iowa improve their already high student performance levels by giving them greater flexibility to allocate federal resources to meet the unique needs of their districts.
Since 1965 with the enactment of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal government has poured more than $130 billion into the K-12 public education system. Despite 35 years of financial help from the Federal Treasury, achievement gaps loom large on a national level among rural, urban, and suburban areas; minority and immigrant populations; and affluent and low-income school districts. Especially among disadvantaged populations, long-overdue improvements in national education policy are necessary to give every child in America the opportunity to learn. Taxpayers should be able to expect their hard-earned money is teaching students to read, write, add and subtract. Shuffling kids through the system cheats under-achievers from reaching their full potential and does a disservice to society in the long run.
After making education reform his number-one domestic priority during the presidential campaign of 2000, President Bush is making good on his pledge to 'leave no child behind' in the public education system. In January, the president signed into law a sweeping overhaul of federal education policy that will give extraordinary flexibility to local school districts to target and improve student achievement and proficiency in the basics. Students enrolled in chronically deficient schools may qualify for tutoring, after school services or summer school programs and have the option of transferring to another public or charter school.
The bipartisan 'No Child Left Behind Act' substantially increases the federal investment and financial commitment to the public school system, spending $26.5 billion nationwide in 2002. Iowa can expect approximately $389 million in federal education dollars this year, almost $43 million more than last year.
The new education laws cut through layers of red tape to allow local school districts to spend money where it works. Local school board members, principals and educators know where resources are needed most to help boost student achievement. School administrators can get the most bang for the taxpayer’s buck because they know better than a bureaucrat in the federal education department whether their school needs more help in recruiting and retaining good teachers, offering assistance with professional development, beefing up technology, or setting up English proficiency programs.
And for the first time, rural schools with much smaller enrollments than their suburban and urban counterparts will have the opportunity to pool federal resources that may not have added up to much under a per-pupil federal formula and spend the money to meet specific educational challenges in their individual districts.
In addition to greater local control and spending flexibility, the new policy changes will empower parents and taxpayers to obtain information about student achievement and teacher qualifications. Under the new federal education act, every public school in the country is required to test students in grades 3-8 to assess literacy and math skills by the 2005-2006 academic year. Each school will need to issue an annual report card on their schools’ progress toward achieving and improving student proficiency in the basics year after year.
The 'Leave No Child Behind Act' will take unprecedented steps to bridge the growing divide between disadvantaged students and their peers. Iowa stands to gain from the increase in federal education dollars coming in to our schools. And what’s even better, the local school districts will have more say over how to spend those extra dollars without jumping through hoops to get permission from Washington on how best to teach every child in an Iowa classroom how to learn.