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Legislative Update November 7, 2008

In this issue:

• IRA Letter to President-Elect Obama
• New Regulations Finalized for NCLB
• Changes at ED re: Title III
• Issues Early 2009: Audio Call November 18, 8 PM EST
  
  IRA Letter to President-Elect Obama to Emphasize Professional Development
  
  The IRA board of directors approved sending a letter to the president-elect. Linda Gambrell chairs the letter-drafting committee that includes Jay S. Blanchard, William T. Hammond, Marsha E. Lewis, Maryann M. Manning, James E. Newkirk, Brenda J. Overturf, Ray Reutzel, and advisor Richard C. Anderson. Staff members on the committee are Alan Farstrup, Richard Long, Cathy Roller, and Barbara Tierney. The Legislative Action Team supplied input via the September 2008 survey. Look for an article outlining survey responses in the November 2008 Reading Today.
  
  Recommendation to President-Elect: Emphasize Professional Development.
  Professional development is one of many tools a teacher should have access to with the goal of helping all of their students. Not all teachers need a massive amount of professional development. Target date to send the letter: mid-November. We will send the letter to the Legislative Action Team (LAT) when it is released. It will also be posted on the LAT blog at http://www.latadvisory.blogspot.com/.
  
  New Regulations Governing Title I of NCLB
  
  On October 29th, 2008 the U.S. Department of Education (US ED) issued new regulations governing parts of Title I of No Child Left Behind. Among the key elements: graduation requirements, growth models, supplemental education services, public school choice, and school improvement. For a copy of the regulations and a summary from US ED: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2008/10/10282008.html
  
  These regulations are over 400 pages long and take effect on December 1, 2008. The graduation rate requirement will hold schools accountable for dropouts and others who do not graduate from high school with a regular diploma. Schools must have written confirmation that the student has enrolled in another school or educational program that culminates in a regular high school diploma. The schools can also use a separate formula (other than the primary four-year formula) to reflect that some students need more than four years to graduate. The regulations also cover areas such as when buildings don’t need to withhold 20% of their Title I Part A funds for Supplemental Education Services (SES) and public school choice. The regulations outline how a building can reallocate their 20% obligation and also what the penalty is for claiming that they don’t need these monies but later find they need them for SES and/or public school choice.
  
  While the U.S. Department of Education claims that many of these regulations reflect a new state of practice in implementing NCLB, others see that the new regulations will require a significant amount of time to implement. It is possible that the new Congress or Administration may make changes in the coming year. How likely this is to happen is hard to tell since many in Congress did not publicly raise any issues when comments were solicited at the notice of proposed rule making in April 2008.
  
  Changes at US ED and Title III
  
  In June 2008, the U.S. Department of Education (US ED) announced that it would change the program monitoring of Title III of NCLB. Title III is the section of NCLB that provides funds to those schools which apply and meet the criteria to provide English language acquisition programs to students who are ELLs.
  
  U.S. ED hopes to better coordinate both monitoring visits and how different facets of NCLB are integrated. However, some are worried that the ELL program may lose emphasis - either by a funding cut or by a loss of leadership at the U.S. Department of Education. While the monitoring function has shifted to Title I, the Office of English Language Acquisition will still be doing policy work.
  
  On October 2, 2008, U.S. ED sent a policy letter to the Chief State School Officer of each state outlining U.S. ED’s concerns around the use of funds for assessment programs and how they are –– or are not –– impacted by the supplement/not supplant requirements. The letter outlined how some schools are using federal funds to conduct assessments and points out that this is a local responsibility. The federal funds are designed to be used in addition to the local funds –– and not to replace the local funds.
  
  Issues in Early 2009: Audio Call Nov. 18, 8 PM EST
  
  The new president will face a wide range of challenges. He will create and submit a new budget shortly after he takes office, and deal with the funding for the current fiscal year. (Funding runs out in early March for most government agencies.) The new president and Congress will allocate resources and either change the funding plan for the balance of the fiscal year - or simply allow for the old policy to be maintained. Few expect that the old funding plan will simply be extended.
  
  Audio call: “What Is the Likely Education Agenda for President Obama?” – Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 8 PM EST. For more information contact btierney@reading.org.
  
  I:\GR IRA\monthly updates\November 7 2008.doc

June 25-27, 2009 Legislative Workshop

Save the Date!
International Reading Association
2009 Government Relations Workshop
June 25-27, 2009
Washington, DC

Ø Strengthen your advocacy efforts
Ø Actively impact legislation such as the reauthorization of NCLB
Ø Learn about federal and state legislative issues
Ø Directly communicate with your congressional leaders or their staffs

Fully refundable $50.00 registration fee required. (Refunded upon notification of cancellation or when attending the conference. This policy is to provide an accurate meal count to IRA. IRA provides breakfast and working lunch on Friday, June 26th.) All expenses (transportation, lodging, food, and entertainment) are responsibility of workshop attendees. (Many participants get funding from their state councils.)

Hotel rooms: We have a block of rooms at the luxurious Liaison Capitol Hill for a bargain $189 a night (single or double). You must call to book your own reservation:
The Liaison Capitol Hill
415 New Jersey Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001T: 202-434-0121/F: 202-347-1813

Questions? 202-624-8800 or irawash@reading.org

Updates: www.reading.org

We look forward to seeing you in June 2009!

Final Regulations for Title I

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, on October 28, 2008, announced final regulations to strengthen and clarify No Child Left Behind (NCLB), focusing on improved accountability and transparency, uniform and disaggregated graduation rates and improved parental notification for Supplemental Education Services and public school choice.

This is a pre-publication copy of the final regulations for Title I. The official version of this document is the document published in the Federal Register. This document will be published in the Federal Register on October 29, 2008.

http://federalregister.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2008-25270_PI.pdf

Audio Conference: Impact of New Regulations for NCLB

Audio Conference: Impact of New Regulations for NCLB
October 29, 7:30 pm EDT

How will the new regulations to NCLB impact education in 2009?
Join Richard Long, IRA Director of Government Relations, as he discusses the impact of new regulations for NCLB that will effect NCLB's cell size calculations, use of growth models, graduation rates and other parts of NCLB.

This will be a free service, but registration is limited.

Register by Tuesday, October 28 (the day the new regulations are being announced) with btierney@reading.org to receive the call-in number and a Power Point set of slides that will be sent 10/29. Dr. Long will brief callers for 20 minutes and then answer questions.
E-mail concise questions in advance to btierney@reading.org. (We cannot guarantee that all questions will be answered during the call. We will try to answer all questions by e-mail.) Include your name and affiliation when posting your questions.
__________________________________________________________________________________________If Listen in to the US Department of Education's briefing on the new regulations-- sign up for one of these services:

1) IN-PERSON BRIEFING
When: Tuesday, October 28, 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. ET
Where: U.S. Department of Education's Auditorium (400 Maryland Ave.,S.W., Washington, D.C.)
Deputy Secretary Ray Simon, Assistant Secretary for Elementary andSecondary Education Kerri Briggs, and Assistant Deputy Secretary forInnovation and Improvement
RSVPs are not required.

2) CONFERENCE CALL
When: Tuesday, October 28, 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. ET
Phone #: 1-800-779-8307
Passcode: EDUCATION
Deputy Secretary Ray Simon, Assistant Secretary for Elementary andSecondary Education Kerri Briggs, and Assistant Deputy Secretary forInnovation and Improvement
Again, RSVPs are not required.

3) LIVE WEBCAST
When: Thursday, October 30, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. ET
Senior Department officials will host this event. More details to follow.

<http://www.ed.gov/>http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2008/10/10282008.html.

Election Education Issues

Candidates Differ on Key Issues for Principals

NASSP has a new website section that showcases responses from the Obama and McCain campaigns to a recent presidential questionnaire on pressing school reform issues.


To view the questionnaire and responses, visit www.principals.org/s_nassp/sec.asp?CID=1621&DID=58461.

NASSP asked the education advisers to the presidential candidates to weigh in on issues that would affect you and your school. Along with the candidates’ positions on each issue, the advisers were asked to submit quotes or links to verbiage that support that position. The following documents contain their verbatim responses.

Documents
No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress
Federal Education Funding and Professional Development
National Standards and Graduation Rates
Addressing the Dropout Crisis
Literacy and Numeracy
School Safety, Charter Schools, and Vouchers

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) is a non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization that does not endorse, support, advocate for, or encourage people to vote for any political candidate or party. The information provided on the 2008 presidential candidates does not reflect the opinion of or endorsement by NASSP.


Webcast Archive: Education and the Next President

Register to view the archive of this Webcast now.
View “Education and the Next President,” a live debate that took place at Teachers College, Columbia University, between

Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Barack Obama, and

Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to John McCain.

The event was exclusively Webcast by edweek.org. Campaign '08 Coverage: See Education Week's continuing coverage and interactive resources of the 2008 presidential campaign to learn more about where the two candidates and their running mates stand on education. Also read the edweek.org blog, Campaign K-12, for more analysis of the candidates' views. -->Register for the Archived Webcast now. Read the Full Transcript

http://www.edweek.org/ew/marketplace/webinars/webcast_ed_next_president_transcript.html

Education and the Election Tuesday 10/21 7pm est

Education and the Election
Two must-see events on edweek.org --
Live Debate: Education and the Next President
Exclusive webcast, Tuesday, October 21, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern time.
Live from Teachers College, Columbia University: "Education and the Next President," a debate between Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Democratic nominee Barack Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to Republican nominee John McCain.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/campaign08/index.html
Register now to watch the live debate at
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=122206&sessionid=1&key=F133A5219746027376C0662466473BDD&sourcepage=register

****************************
Analyzing the Election: What’s at Stake for Schools?
Check back here (http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/campaign08/index.html)
on Wednesday, Oct. 22, noon Eastern time for a post-debate discussion with leading education analysts, moderated by Education Week's David Hoff.
Available online Wednesday, Oct. 22, 12 p.m. Eastern time
Education Week’s David J. Hoff moderates a post-debate discussion with leading education analysts.