Murray Calls for Strengthening Accountability to Ensure All Students Receive a Quality Education

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) delivered remarks on the Senate floor supporting an amendment to the Every Child Achieves Act to strengthen accountability measures. Murray noted that the amendment from Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) would identify persistent inequality and achievement gaps that continue to exist in schools, and give parents, teachers, and communities measures to hold schools accountable for delivering a quality education.

Key excerpts from Senator Murray’s remarks as submitted for the record:

“The bill before us is a strong step in the right direction to finally fixing that law and to make sure all students have access to a quality public education. But we must keep improving this bill so that all children, particularly the most at-risk kids, can get the education they deserve.  I believe we should strengthen the accountability requirements in this bill to do three things.  First, states should be required identify the lowest performing schools. Second, states should identify the high schools that struggle to graduate large numbers of their seniors. And third, states should identify the schools that fail to help groups of students, like those from low-income backgrounds or students with disabilities, make progress.”

“We have done a lot in this bill to help the adults in the school have the support they need. We’ve improved professional development for teachers. We’ve ensured there is a focus on developing and training for principals and other school leaders. And we have streamlined programs and requirements to ease the burden on school administrators. I was proud to work on all of those provisions. But the amendment that Senator Murphy has introduced is not about the adults. It’s about the children in our schools.  It’s about shining a light on the inequality and the achievement gaps that still exist in our country – and then doing something about it. It’s about ensuring that we, as a country, don’t continue to fail the children from low-income backgrounds, the kids of color, the students with disabilities, year after year.”

“The Every Child Achieves Act removes these unrealistic goals and one-size-fits-all mandates. But we can still have strong accountability without going back to No Child Left Behind’s requirements. And, strong accountability is absolutely critical for at least two important reasons. For one, if a school is failing to help students make progress year after year, parents and communities deserve to know, and they should be assured that the school will take action to improve. And when it comes to our nation’s largest federal investment in K through 12 education, it would be irresponsible to spend billions in federal taxpayer dollars, without knowing if it was making a difference in children’s lives.”

“I’ve heard some critics of strengthening accountability say that including these measures would be a return to No Child Left Behind. That’s simply not the case, No Child Left Behind took a one-size fits all approach. Passing this amendment today would simply ensure that states identify the schools that are underperforming. States will remain in the driver’s seat when it comes to designing their accountability systems and the strategies they use to improve these schools.”

“…Our nation’s schools are only as strong as their ability to educate every child. And we can’t afford the cost of failure. If students get stuck without the tools they need to succeed today, our future workforce and our economy will suffer the consequences.  When every child gets the chance to learn, it will pay off for generations to come.”

“I urge my colleagues to support greater accountability and pass this amendment to make sure all students can learn, regardless of where they live, how they learn, or how much money their parents make.”

Full text from Senator Murray’s remarks as submitted for the record:

“On a Sunday afternoon a half century ago, President Lyndon Johnson returned to his old school in rural Texas with a major piece of legislation. At a picnic table on the lawn of the schoolhouse – and sitting beside his childhood teacher – President Johnson signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

"Now, our nation had always held the ideal of providing education for all.  But ESEA put that ideal into action.  It aimed to close education gaps between rich and poor, black and white, kids from rural areas and kids from big cities.  And as President Johnson put it, the law affirmed our commitment to, ‘quality and equality in the schooling that we offer our young people.’

“Today, we are continuing those efforts by working to reauthorize that law with the Every Child Achieves Act.  And specifically, we’ll debate an amendment to strengthen accountability in this bill to do even more to make sure schools are delivering on the promise of quality and equality to every student in America.

“Accomplishing this goal isn’t just important for students today.  It’s critical for our nation’s future. When all students have access to a high-quality education, it will strengthen our future workforce and economy.  It will do so much to make sure we are offering opportunities to all students, and growing our economy from the middle out, not the top down.

“So holding our schools and states accountable for providing a quality education for all should be a national priority.

“Now, M. President, nearly everyone agrees that the current law – No Child Left Behind – is badly broken.  The bill before us is a strong step in the right direction to finally fixing that law and to make sure all students have access to a quality public education.

“But we must keep improving this bill so that all children, particularly the most at-risk kids, can get the education they deserve.  I believe we should strengthen the accountability requirements in this bill to do three things.

“First, states should be required identify the lowest performing schools. Second, states should identify the high schools that struggle to graduate large numbers of their seniors. And third, states should identify the schools that fail to help groups of students, like those from low-income backgrounds or students with disabilities, make progress.

“M. President, it is clear that many schools and districts have room for improvement, particularly when it comes to serving the most at-risk children in this country. Across the country, too many schools have failed too many of our children for too many years.  More than one million students today attend so-called ‘dropout factories.’ These are the schools that fail to graduate one third or more of their high school seniors.

“We see schools where student achievement has flat-lined or even decreased.  And some schools fail to help some groups of students, like kids from low-income backgrounds, students of color, English learners, and students with disabilities, learn year after year after year. That needs to change.

“These schools need resources and support so they can improve and help all groups of students succeed.

“We have done a lot in this bill to help the adults in the school have the support they need. We’ve improved professional development for teachers. We’ve ensured there is a focus on developing and training for principals and other school leaders. And we have streamlined programs and requirements to ease the burden on school administrators.

“I was proud to work on all of those provisions. But the amendment that Senator Murphy has introduced is not about the adults. It’s about the children in our schools.

“It’s about shining a light on the inequality and the achievement gaps that still exist in our country – and then doing something about it.

“It’s about ensuring that we, as a country, don’t continue to fail the children from low-income backgrounds, the kids of color, the students with disabilities, year after year.

“M. President, we already know what happens when we don’t hold schools and states accountable for educating every child: inevitably, it’s our most vulnerable children who fall through the cracks. Before No Child Left Behind, it was too easy for schools to overlook the performance of these vulnerable groups of students.

“Before 2002, as long as a school’s overall performance was okay, it didn’t matter if students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, or students who were still learning English struggled to make progress year after year. The overall average of all students allowed achievement gaps to be swept under the rug, even as some students fell further and further behind.

“We can’t go back to those days. And we can’t backtrack on holding schools accountable for helping all students learn. 

“But that doesn’t mean No Child Left Behind got it right – far from it. No Child Left Behind enacted one-size-fits-all mandates when schools failed to meet unrealistic achievement goals.

“This punitive system hindered, rather than helped, a school’s efforts to increase student achievement. And those mandates failed to recognize the unique needs of states and local communities.

“The Every Child Achieves Act removes these unrealistic goals and one-size-fits-all mandates. But we can still have strong accountability without going back to No Child Left Behind’s requirements. And, strong accountability is absolutely critical for at least two important reasons.

“For one, if a school is failing to help students make progress year after year, parents and communities deserve to know, and they should be assured that the school will take action to improve.

“And when it comes to our nation’s largest federal investment in K through 12 education, it would be irresponsible to spend billions in federal taxpayer dollars, without knowing if it was making a difference in children’s lives.

“Many of my colleagues demand evidence and accountability in other federal programs. When we spend taxpayer dollars, there is general agreement that we should do whatever we can to make sure that money is being spent as wisely and as efficiently as possible. I hope they agree we need that in education too.

“In the Every Child Achieves Act, Chairman Alexander and I eliminated the worst things about No Child Left Behind - its unrealistic goals and its one-size-fits-all interventions. But right now, the bill does not require states to identify certain low-performing schools. It’s entirely up to the state how many schools they identify for improvement. 

“That is not a strong enough requirement to protect the billions of dollars that states get from federal taxpayers each year. And it’s not a strong enough requirement to protect the millions of at-risk kids in this country.

“If their school is failing to provide them with a quality education, students and parents deserve to know that something will be done about it. I believe they deserve that level of assurance from us. And that’s why this amendment is so important.

“It will strengthen some basic federal guardrails to identify low-performing schools. That will make a big difference for parents and communities so they know how their students and schools are performing. And it will help hold states accountable for the federal funding they receive. 

“First, under this amendment, states would identify the bottom 5 percent of schools, so those students, who have been failed year after year, don’t fall through the cracks. Second, states would identify the high schools that are failing to graduate one third or more of their students.  And finally, states would identify schools that have failed to help subgroups of students make progress.

“Of course, accountability is about more than just identifying the schools and districts that need help. We need to make sure that these schools get the resources they need and make sure that those supports meet the school’s unique needs. So I support locally designed interventions that are rigorous and that schools can change if they are not effective.  That’s why this amendment does not include federally-mandated interventions, like school turnaround or closure. Instead, our bipartisan bill allows communities, parents, and teachers to work together to improve schools. 

“And finally, districts and states should have a clear timeline for enacting, monitoring, and revising these interventions if needed to make sure they work. That way, parents will have some assurance that schools will improve in a reasonable amount of time.

“M. President, the amendment we’ll be discussing today includes all of these elements. And I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

“Now, I’ve heard some critics of strengthening accountability say that including these measures would be a return to No Child Left Behind. That’s simply not the case, No Child Left Behind took a one-size fits all approach. Passing this amendment today would simply ensure that states identify the schools that are underperforming.

“States will remain in the driver’s seat when it comes to designing their accountability systems and the strategies they use to improve these schools.

“But let me be even more specific. No Child Left Behind set an unrealistic 2014 deadline for all students to reach proficiency. The Every Child Achieves Act, on the other hand, allows states to set their own goals. And this amendment does not change that.

“No Child Left Behind focused primarily on test scores to measure school progress. This bill allows states to use many different measures to judge school progress. And this amendment does not change that.

“No Child Left Behind dictated the types of interventions schools had to use if they were deemed low-performing. The Every Child Achieves Act allows districts to design interventions tailored to the individual needs of low-performing schools. And this amendment does not change that. 

“But this amendment would give parents, teachers, and communities important measures to hold their schools accountable for delivering a quality education. 

“M. President, our nation’s schools are only as strong as their ability to educate every child. And we can’t afford the cost of failure. If students get stuck without the tools they need to succeed today, our future workforce and our economy will suffer the consequences.

“When every child gets the chance to learn, it will pay off for generations to come.

“In the 1800s, Horace Mann, who’s often called the Father of American education, worked to make it universal and free for all. He famously said, ‘Education is the great equalizer.’

“And I agree – but only if we continue to hold ourselves accountable for expanding educational opportunities for all students.

“I urge my colleagues to support greater accountability and pass this amendment to make sure all students can learn, regardless of where they live, how they learn, or how much money their parents make.

“Let’s fix No Child Left Behind. Let’s continue to improve this bill by strengthening accountability. And let’s reaffirm our commitment to quality and equality for every student in America.

“Thank you, M. President. I yield the floor.”