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Environmental Education and the No Child Left Behind Act

From Anita Kraemer, Environmental Education Consultant

ACTION ALERT

With the nation facing complicated environmental issues like global warming that will challenge us for years to come, it is critical that schools provide our young people with a solid grounding in environmental education. Unfortunately, environmental education is being left behind as an unintended consequence of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Right now Congress has the opportunity to change this with the reauthorization of NCLB. Please contact your legislators today and to let them know how important environmental education is in preparing today's students for the challenges of tomorrow. Go to www.eeNCLB.org for more information on this issue.

The Problem

Environmental education is facing a national crisis. Many schools are being forced to scale back or eliminate environmental education programs. Fewer and fewer students are able to take part in related classroom instruction and field investigations, however effective or popular. State and local administrators and teachers point to two factors behind this recent and disturbing shift: (1) The emphasis on high-stakes math and reading tests that has discouraged interdisciplinary instruction, and (2) A lack of funding for these critical programs.

NCLB Reauthorization

Currently, the House version of the NCLB is being crafted by the Education and Labor Committee. Now is the time to tell Education and Labor Committee members that environmental education should be a priority for inclusion in the NCLB and can be included in these ways:

• Provide funding to help states develop rigorous environmental education standards, as well as to improve teacher training in environmental education.
• Require state educational agencies to create plans for integrating environmental education into their K-12 curriculum to ensure that graduates are environmentally literate.
• Integrate environmental education into the core academic subjects.

What You Can Do

1. Write a letter urging your legislator to support inclusion of environmental education in NCLB. Go to www.eeNCLB.org for a sample letter that you can email and/or fax.

2. Call your legislator's congressional office and ask to speak to the education staff person. Let him or her know how important it is to you that environmental education be included in NCLB. Go to www.eeNCLB.org for your legislator's phone number.

By making a few changes to NCLB, we can dramatically improve our schools' ability to prepare children for real-world challenges and careers and ensure an environmentally sustainable future.

Environmental Education and the No Child Left Behind Act

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Climate changes, depletion of natural resources, air and water problems, and other environmental challenges are pressing and complex issues that threaten human health, economic development, and national security. Finding wide-spread agreement about what specific steps we need to take to solve these problems is difficult. Environmental education will help ensure our nation's children have the knowledge and skills necessary to address these complex issues.

For more than three decades, environmental education has been a growing part of effective instruction in America's schools. Responding to the need to improve student achievement and prepare students for the 21st century economy, schools throughout the nation now offer some form of environmental education. Thirty million students and 1.2 million teachers annually are involved in programs ranging from environmental science courses to an interdisciplinary approach that uses the environment as an integrating theme throughout the entire curriculum. Yet, environmental education is facing a national crisis. Many schools are being forced to scale back or eliminate environmental programs. Fewer and fewer students are able to take part in related classroom instruction and field investigations, however effective or popular. State and local administrators and teachers point to two factors behind this recent and disturbing shift: the unintended consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and a lack of funding for these critical programs.

Conceptually, NCLB has taken a positive step forward by giving states and schools greater authority and flexibility in exchange for more accountability regarding student performance. According to environmental education organizations, one unintentional consequence of the law's testing requirements has been that many schools have abandoned environmental education programs to invest more time and resources in math and reading instruction. In the classroom, NCLB causes science teachers to bypass environmental science when it does not appear to relate directly to state tests. Beyond the classroom, teachers have to forego valuable, hands-on field investigations rather than take time away from test-related instruction.

The national crisis facing environmental education is compounded by a lack of funding. The National Environmental Education Act, the primary source of federal support for K-12 environmental education, provided only $6.6 million last year, an average of only $132,000 per state.

The American public recognizes that the environment is already one of the dominant issues of the 21st century. A National Science Foundation panel echoed that conviction, noting in 2003 that "in the coming decades, the public will more frequently be called upon to understand complex environmental issues, assess risk, evaluate proposed environmental plans and understand how individual decisions affect the environment at local and global scales. Creating a scientifically informed citizenry requires a concerted, systemic approach to environmental educationÉ" In the private sector, business leaders also increasingly believe that an environmentally literate workforce is critical to their long-term success. They recognize that better, more efficient environmental practices improve the bottom line and help position their companies for the future.

The reauthorization of NCLB this year provides Congress with the opportunity to make changes that will strengthen the Act and better prepare students for real-world challenges and careers. NCLB must provide schools and school systems with the incentives, flexibility, and authority to develop and deliver environmental education programs.

Summary of Environmental Education Changes Sought in NCLB

1. Title V - Create a separate Environmental Education grant program to help build national and state capacity

At the national and state level there is a need to build the "educational infrastructure" necessary to support environmental education. This section will provide funds for states to develop, improve, and advance environmental education standards. It will also support the development of new state-level private/public financing sources and dissemination of proven environmental educational models and studies of national significance.

2. Title II - Create a separate Environmental Education grant program for teacher training as well as identify Environmental Education as an eligible activity for the existing pool of teacher training funds

Create a separate environmental education grant program for teacher training which is modeled on the Math/Science Partnerships to ensure that a sufficient number of qualified teachers are available to teach these courses and programs while strengthening existing environmental education teacher training programs.

3. Title V - Include Environmental Education as an Authorized Program in the Fund for the Improvement of Education

The Fund for the Improvement of Education is an important source of funding for states and school superintendents, and is only available for specified activities. Including environmental education as an authorized use for these funds will enable more funding to flow to environmental education programs.

4. Title IX - Integrate Environmental Education Across the Core Academic Subjects

Amend the definition in Title IX to integrate environmental education into the core academic subjects.

5. Title II - State Environmental Literacy Plans

To qualify for environmental education grant monies under Title II and Title V, each state must develop and submit a K-12 plan to ensure that high school graduates are environmentally literate. States will submit implementation status reports.

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