An OSBA newsletter for school board members on the No Child Left Behind Act — August 2006

Legal issues                                                                                                                                     by Hollie Reedy, staff attorney
All states get final assessment review letters
All 50 states participated in a U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) peer review of their assessment systems to determine NCLB compliance. Ohio was rated “approval pending,” meaning the state had one fundamental component not meeting the requirements. USDOE also found issues that the department said, “… could be addressed more immediately.” The fundamental component found wanting in Ohio’s system was the lack of alignment of the Ohio Achievement Test with grade-level reading and math content. Ohio was placed under “mandatory oversight,” which nrequires the state to: meet specific conditions attached to funding; submit a plan and detailed time line for meeting the requirements by July 31; and submit bimonthly reports of progress on the plan. If the Ohio nDepartment of Education fails to meet the time line in its plan, USDOE could withhold 10% of state-level administrative funds, which would then revert to Ohio local educational agencies. Ten states received approval, 36 were deemed “pending approval,” and Maine and Nebraska’s systems were rejected. To read the state assessment letters, see www.ed.gov/admins/lead/account/saa.html and click on No. 8, “State Final Assessment Systems.”

Legislative issues                                                                                               by Fred Pausch, director of legislative services
Telecom bill clears Senate committee
Legislation to overhaul the communications industry has cleared the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Within the bill is the E-rate program important to school districts for Internet access and internal connection services. Committee Chair Ted Stevens (R-AK) fashioned a bipartisan compromise to strengthen E-rate.

Curriculum issues                                                                              by Rob Delane, director of school board development
NCLB Web glossary helps unscramble the jargon
Educational jargon can often hinder understanding of complex educational initiatives. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is no different, and certainly has its own unique vocabulary. The following link will not only take you to an A-Z topic index for NCLB, but also will enable you to click on the “Glossary” heading that will give you specific definitions for many of the terms used. For more information: www.ed.gov/nclb/index/az/index.html.