II

106TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION S. 1252

To provide parents, taxpayers, and educators with useful, understandable

school report cards.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JUNE 21, 1999

Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. BINGAMAN, and Mr. BYRD) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

A BILL

To provide parents, taxpayers, and educators with useful,

understandable school report cards.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Standardized School

5 Report Card Act’’.

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

7 Congress makes the following findings:

8 (1) According to the report ‘‘Quality Counts

9 99’’, by Education Week, 36 States require the pub-
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1 lishing of annual report cards on individual schools,

2 but the content of the report cards varies widely.

3 (2) The content of most of the report cards de4 scribed in paragraph (1) does not provide parents

5 with the information the parents need to measure

6 how their school or State is doing compared with

7 other schools and States.

8 (3) Ninety percent of taxpayers believe that

9 published information about individual schools would

10 motivate educators to work harder to improve the

11 schools’ performance.

12 (4) More than 60 percent of parents and 70

13 percent of taxpayers have not seen an individual re14 port card for their area school.

15 (5) Dissemination of understandable informa16 tion about schools can be an important tool for par17 ents and taxpayers to measure the quality of the

18 schools and to hold the schools accountable for im19 proving performance.

20 SEC. 3. PURPOSE.

21 The purpose of this Act is to provide parents, tax22 payers, and educators with useful, understandable school

23 report cards.
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1 SEC. 4. REPORT CARDS.

2 (a) STATE REPORT CARDS.—Each State educational

3 agency receiving assistance under the Elementary and

4 Secondary Education Act of 1965 shall produce and wide5 ly disseminate an annual report card for parents, the gen6 eral public, teachers and the Secretary of Education, in

7 easily understandable language, with respect to elemen8 tary and secondary education in the State. The report

9 card shall contain information regarding—

10 (1) student performance in language arts and

11 mathematics, plus any other subject areas in which

12 the State requires assessments, including compari13 sons with students from different school districts

14 within the State, and, to the extent possible, com15 parisons with students throughout the Nation;

16 (2) attendance and graduation rates;

17 (3) professional qualifications of teachers in the

18 State, the number of teachers teaching out of field,

19 and the number of teachers with emergency certifi20 cation;

21 (4) average class size in the State;

22 (5) school safety, including the safety of school

23 facilities, incidents of school violence and drug and

24 alcohol abuse, and the number of instances in which

25 a student was determined to have brought a firearm
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1 to school under the State law described in the Gun2 Free Schools Act of 1994;

3 (6) to the extent practicable, parental involve4 ment, as measured by the extent of parental partici5 pation in school parental involvement policies de6 scribed in section 1118(b) of the Elementary and

7 Secondary Education Act of 1965;

8 (7) the annual school dropout rate, as cal9 culated by procedures conforming with the National

10 Center for Education Statistics Common Core of

11 Data;

12 (8) student access to technology, including the

13 number of computers for educational purposes, the

14 number of computers per classroom, and the number

15 of computers connected to the Internet; and

16 (9) other indicators of school performance and

17 quality.

18 (b) SCHOOL REPORT CARDS.—Each school receiving

19 assistance under the Elementary and Secondary Edu20 cation Act of 1965, or the local educational agency serving

21 that school, shall produce and widely disseminate an an22 nual report card for parents, the general public, teachers

23 and the State educational agency, in easily understandable

24 language, with respect to elementary or secondary edu-
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1 cation, as appropriate, in the school. The report card shall

2 contain information regarding—

3 (1) student performance in the school in lan4 guage arts and mathematics, plus any other subject

5 areas in which the State requires assessments, in6 cluding comparisons with other students within the

7 school district, in the State, and, to the extent pos8 sible, in the Nation;

9 (2) attendance and graduation rates;

10 (3) professional qualifications of the school’s

11 teachers, the number of teachers teaching out of

12 field, and the number of teachers with emergency

13 certification;

14 (4) average class size in the school;

15 (5) school safety, including the safety of the

16 school facility, incidents of school violence and drug

17 and alcohol abuse, and the number of instances in

18 which a student was determined to have brought a

19 firearm to school under the State law described in

20 the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994;

21 (6) parental involvement, as measured by the

22 extent of parental participation in school parental in23 volvement policies described in section 1118(b) of

24 the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of

25 1965;
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1 (7) the annual school dropout rate, as cal2 culated by procedures conforming with the National

3 Center for Education Statistics Common Core of

4 Data;

5 (8) student access to technology, including the

6 number of computers for educational purposes, the

7 number of computers per classroom, and the number

8 of computers connected to the Internet; and

9 (9) other indicators of school performance and

10 quality.

11 (c) MODEL SCHOOL REPORT CARDS.—The Secretary

12 of Education shall use funds made available to the Office

13 of Educational Research and Improvement to develop a

14 model school report card for dissemination, upon request,

15 to a school, local educational agency, or State educational

16 agency.

17 (d) DISAGGREGATION OF DATA.—Each State edu18 cational agency or school producing an annual report card

19 under this section shall disaggregate the student perform20 ance data reported under section 4(a)(1) or 4(b)(1), as

21 appropriate, in the same manner as results are

22 disaggregated under section 1111(b)(3)(I) of the Elemen23 tary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

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