Flexibility with Just 10 Percent of No Child Left Behind Spending Is Not Enough

The Student Success Act, currently under consideration in Congress, consolidates several dozen programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now known as No Child Left Behind) into what is being called a Local Academic Flexible Grant.

Although some are championing the grant as an improvement on the status quo, it would only provide flexibility in a limited way, within the confines of a much larger and much more inflexible 616-page proposal to rewrite NCLB.

The Local Academic Flexible Grant would give states the flexibility to spend roughly $2.3 billion in a way that better mirrors state priorities, particularly as it pertains to student safety. As the Congressional Budget Office noted, the new grant “would provide funds to school districts to develop supplemental student activities, such as before or after school learning, and additional activities that support students, such as adjunct teacher programs and academic-subject specific programs.”

This flexibility should be understood as distinct from options like the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act, which would allow states to completely opt-out of all of the programs that fall under NCLB, and put dollars toward any lawful education purpose under state law.

NCLB currently authorizes roughly $24 billion in spending for the nearly 80 programs that fall under the law. Providing flexibility within a single title of the law totaling just 10 percent of overall spending in NCLB, and within a limited scope, is a missed opportunity to truly restore state and local decision-making.

States need genuine flexibility from Washington mandates and prescriptive programmatic requirements established by the Department of Education and Congress. States need to be able to completely opt-out of all of the programs that fall under NCLB, not just a handful of programs.

The APLUS approach has long been championed by conservatives as a way to restore state and local control of education. And conservatives now have a chance to advance policies that do just that.