WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) today called for reforms to the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the landmark education law that represented the biggest reform of American education in 40 years. DeLauro called for the reforms the same week that Connecticut became the first state to sue the U.S. Department of Education for imposing millions of dollars worth of illegal unfunded mandates on the state under NCLB requirements.

“The No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to raise school standards and ensure student achievement,” said DeLauro. “But since No Child Left Behind’s implementation three years ago, the law has been found to be inflexible and highly restrictive for teachers and students. The administration’s failure to fully-fund the law has placed enormous unfunded mandates on states like Connecticut.”

Since its passage, the law has been funded at a level that is billions below what was promised. The president’s budget for 2006 is $9.4 billion less than the $22.75 billion originally called for in the law. If the federal government does not fund the program, states will be forced to do so.

DeLauro previously raised concerns to the Education Department over provisions of NCLB that forced Connecticut to prohibit special education students from taking out-of-level-testing. Connecticut administered this testing successfully for nineteen years before it was forced to eliminate the testing to comply with the law’s standards.

The No Child Left Behind Reform Act would:

· Allow schools to be given credit for performing well on measures other than test scores. The bill also includes $80 million to develop and maintain systems that can monitor and track individual student improvement on measures of student achievement over time.

· Allow states to target school choice and supplemental services to students in the specific subgroups that do not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

· Provides additional flexibility for teachers in meeting the Highly Qualified (HQ) requirements by allowing states to create a broad-based social studies, science and middle school certificate. These changes will make it easier, particularly at the middle school level, for teachers who teach multiple subjects to meet the requirements of NCLB.

“We need to maintain our commitment to education, which the No Child Left Behind Reform Act seeks to do,” said DeLauro. “These reforms are reasonable solutions to a system that is failing our children.”

Identical legislation was introduced earlier this week in the U.S. Senate by Chris Dodd.