Republicans Pass Legislation to Raid Funding for Poor and Minority Students and Undermine Civil Rights
Statement
Congressman Rubén Hinojosa announced that with a vote of 23-17, Republicans on the Education and the Workforce committee on Wednesday approved legislation that raids federal funding for disadvantaged and minority students, undermines federal efforts at ensuring equal opportunity in schools, and fails to address stakeholders' actual concerns with the outdated No Child Left Behind law. The legislation would dismantle the civil rights role of the federal government in education by allowing money that is intended for certain populations of students to be spent instead on any use under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Committee Republicans voted against amendments Democrats offered to protect the funding for poor, minority and disadvantaged students, English Language Learners, Native American, migrant and neglected students.
During the markup, Republicans lamented the federal government's role in pressing for greater educational equality for all students, a role borne from landmark civil rights cases such as Brown v. Board of Education. Democrats repeatedly pointed out the unfairness and injustice of this Republican bill.
"I voiced my strong opposition to this bill in the committee hearing. This proposal is down-right shameful," said U.S. Rep. Hinojosa. "It is turning back the clock on educational equity and fairness. Under the guise of flexibility, this Republican bill is simply an attack on the civil rights of low-income minority students.
We must remember that the targeted funding formulas being undermined in this bill are the result of long-standing civil rights laws and the federal government's desire to address the needs of low-income students, English Language Learners, Migrant students, Native American students, and neglected and delinquent children. These federal dollars were intended to be used for services for these populations."
The bill that passed on Wednesday would exacerbate the unequal educational funding gap that already exists between poor and minority kids and wealthier students. While premised on calls for flexibility, the bill only provides flexibility to raid funds intended for poor and minority students. The bill does not provide flexibility in the areas of education policy where states, districts, and schools have requested it.
"It is no surprise that the Tri-Caucus, which includes the Congressional Black Caucus, Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and hundreds of civil rights groups and national organizations oppose the bill," said U.S Rep. Hinojosa."
The education, business and disability communities expressed serious concerns and objections to the bill:
Hispanic Education Coalition (HEC): This continued failure to invest in Latino students will only serve to reverse any progress made in closing achievement gaps, increasing graduation rates and college going and completion rates for Hispanic students. For these reasons, HEC strongly opposes passage of this bill and urges Congress to work toward the passage of a bipartisan comprehensive reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
National Council of La Raza: The State and Local Flexibility Act would allow states and school districts to combine funding from different sections of ESEA to address needs they deem to be most pressing. While this deference to state and local control may be politically popular, it imperils the education of Hispanic and ELL students, who have experienced decades of educational neglect at the hands of state and local education officials.
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL): Unfortunately, this bill would create a loophole that could allow for the diversion of federal funds targeted for these student populations, thereby undermining the original purpose and spirit of ESEA. This would have a devastating impact on ELLs in particular, who are still chronically underserved. With states and districts already facing significant reductions in their school budgets, the impact of this legislation on the most vulnerable students would be compounded.
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC): We believe there is a necessary federal role in education, and that role provides necessary protections, and resources, to groups that have been historically discriminated against. he State and Local Funding Flexibility Act (SLFFA) eliminates those protections by providing a blank check for states and localities to redistribute formula funding allocated for disadvantaged students.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund & The Children's Defense Fund: H.R. 2445 threatens decades of work by Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle, committed educators, education advocates, and others to help ensure that disadvantaged children have access to a quality education. By giving states and districts a virtual blank check, the bill would effectively turn ESEA into a block grant that removes the protections afforded to poor students. It would allow states and school districts to once again divert dollars from the students ESEA is intended to help, and in the process, pit groups of vulnerable children against one another.
Alliance for Excellent Education, National Urban League, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, National Indian Education Association, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Council of La Raza: Too early, too much unknown. It is too early to create flexibility within programs that have not yet been reauthorized. At this stage, it is unknown what the provisions of Title I and other affected programs (as well as the use of funds for those programs) will be under a reauthorized ESEA. It is irresponsible to talk about flexibility for programs that have not yet been reauthorized. Instead of providing states and districts with flexibility that endangers positive outcomes for disadvantaged children, the federal government should support state efforts to construct and implement a system of interventions that will be effective in helping schools significantly and rapidly improve learning conditions and outcomes for all students.
American Federation of Teachers: This bill would undermine the longstanding purpose of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) by dismantling 45 years of legislative policy committed to ensuring that disadvantaged children are provided a high-quality education that allows them to compete on the same level playing field as their more advantaged peers.
Consortium For Citizens With Disabilities: While we share the goal of eliminating barriers that hinder schools from meeting their obligations to all students, including those with disabilities, we believe that the bill as currently drafted will not improve educational outcomes for all students including students with disabilities.
Council for Exceptional Children: CEC wholeheartedly agrees that additional funding is needed to implement Early Intervening Services -- resources that often go to supporting response-to-intervention programs. But this approach of robbing Peter to pay Paul under the guise of flexibility‟ does nothing to help the full education community.
The Education Trust: If passed, this bill would give district leaders carte blanche to pilfer money from the budgets of its poorest schools and spend it instead on things that would minimally -- or never -- benefit the students whom Congress intended to support, turning federal resources into little more than a slush fund. This kind of "flexibility' would systematically undermine the efforts of school leaders who are working hard to boost student learning and close the achievement gap. And that's not the kind of flexibility our schools or our students need.
The Council of the Great City Schools: Ironically, this flexibility bill does not effectively address, and in fact appears to maintain, some of the most inflexible and unproductive mandates in ESEA -- the same mandates for which statutory relief was expressly requested by Committee witnesses. Similarly, urban school officials understand the difference between productive flexibility that can facilitate academic progress and narrow achievement gaps, and unproductive proposals that can divert money and focus away from critical educational needs. H.R. 2445 falls into this latter category in our opinion. The Council, therefore, urges a NO vote on this bill.
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: The right to a quality education is paramount and the Lawyers' Committee is committed to protecting this right for all students. We urge the Committee to enact reforms that target the persistent and discriminatory opportunity gap amongst minority and white students. This necessitates clearly defined standards and guidelines. The State and Local Funding Flexibility Act undermines this goal. If we all truly believe that the education of our children is a civil right, then we must treat it as such and take affirmative steps to address the racial inequities in our public education system. This is the only way to ensure that we are indeed protecting the rights of all of our nation's children.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights: "The State and Local Funding Flexibility Act would do immeasurable harm to our nation's most vulnerable children. For decades, bipartisan majorities of Congress have agreed that disadvantaged students -- including students living in high-poverty communities, those who need to learn English, and Native American students -- should receive additional resources to ensure that they have equal access to quality education. Instead of strengthening that commitment, this bill would end it.
National Association of State Directors of Special Education, Inc.: Under the guise of funding flexibility, this bill will potentially lessen the resources available to ensure that students who have historically struggled in school and have some of the nation's lowest high school graduation rates have the resources that the federal government has provided for nearly 50 years to help them be successful in school.
National Association of Elementary School Principals and National Association of Secondary School Principals: While we support the concept of appropriate flexibility at the state and local level, we have concerns with the current language and its ability to provide sufficient protections for the services directed to high-need student populations. Many of the programs identified in H.R. 2445 as "applicable" and "alternative" use of funds were created to improve educational opportunities for specific student populations. The federal government stepped in to fill this void and supplement state and local funds for schools that serve a large number of economically-disadvantaged and limited English proficient students.
National Alliance of Black School Educators: The National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE) respectfully requests that the Committee on Education and the Workforce reconsider the tenants underlying the "State and Local Funding Flexibility Act". We would not deny the progress that has been made in addressing the horrible vestiges of segregation, isolation and poverty. Let us not now, when we have only come half-way go back. We as a nation are better people than that.
National Center for Learning and Disabilities: While some flexibility in ESEA should be considered by the Committee, this flexibility should focus on helping schools more intensively direct instructional support and interventions on student learning rather than allowing funds to be directed away from their specific needs.
National Education Association: Despite its good intentions, the State and Local Funding Flexibility Act includes loopholes allowing the diversion of already scarce resources for vulnerable populations to totally different purposes. As a result, this misguided "flexibility" would undermine the spirit and intent of the original ESEA by narrowing protections for the very students it was designed to protect.
National Indian Education Association: "Allowing states to accept federal dollars based on the demographics of their Indian populations without ensuring that the intended federal services reach these Indian children is wrong. The federal government's role in education is to be the moral compass that strives to achieve equity for all students of color, including Indians, and to ensure that the federal trust responsibility to educate Indians is met. H.R. 2445 fails to meet these minimum standards, and thus we cannot support it."
National PTA: PTA believes that improvements in state and local flexibility must be central to efforts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; however, we do not believe that this version of flexibility is sufficient.
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