Senate approves rewrite of ‘No Child Left Behind’

The measure now goes to the White House, where President Barack Obama is expected to sign it.

Though the new law won’t automatically change the average day inside New Jersey classrooms, it does open new avenues for the state’s leaders, said Jeff Passe, dean of the School of Education at the College of New Jersey.

From a California perspective, the new law is surprisingly closely aligned with the thrust of education reforms in the state giving greater powers to local school districts, reducing the emphasis on standardized test scores in holding schools and students “accountable”, and in general moving away from top-down reforms emanating from Washington and Sacramento.

Approval of the bill, titled the Every Student Succeeds Act, follows years of inaction and gridlock by Congress on the issue.

No Child Left Behind passed with broad support in Congress and was signed by President George W. Bush.

The bill provides for more transparency about test scores, meaning parents and others in the community will get a better look at how students in their states and in local schools are doing.

“I think this law appears to give us a little more flexibility to get us to where we want”, Hespe said. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said in an interview. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is second from left. CEA is the state’s largest teachers union. He was a chief architect of the bill along with Democratic Sen.

The primary result? States and local school districts have more freedom to devise and adopt educational programs. The goal was to make America’s students more proficient in math and reading, but even if a school improved from year to year, they could still be considered failing if a majority of students didn’t test at or above their grade level.

“This bill isn’t flawless, but it puts the choice of education back in the hands of the people that know best – parents, teachers, school boards and state leaders”. That law expired in 2007 but stayed on the books because previous attempts at a rewrite failed. States will be required to intervene at schools in the lowest-performing 5 percent, in high schools with high dropout rates and schools with ongoing achievement gaps.

“With a deep resolve for strong accountability and high-quality standards, I applaud the efforts of our federal delegation who sought to limit federal over-reach and strengthen state control of teacher evaluation, assessments, academic standards, accountability and innovation”.

But politicians from both sides of the aisle and many other education advocates have lauded the act, which encourages reduced testing of students, limits high-stakes consequences for struggling schools and will benefit preschool programs, homeless students and those learning English.

The new act focuses less on data gleaned from standardized tests and more on assessing achievement using other indicators.

“With the passage of this act, we’re eager to leave the old and flawed federal law behind”, Mead said in a statement, adding her thanks to Murray for putting kids first and for listening to the concerns of educators.

U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., voted against the legislation because he felt it fails to sufficiently curtail excessive government overreach in the nation’s school system.

“I’m proud to sign a law that will make sure every student is prepared to succeed”, Obama said Thursday.

The U.S. Education Department will still have the authority to sanction states that don’t test their kids every year, or that don’t report the results by race, ethnicity, income and special needs. Democrats backed the measure after securing assurances that disadvantaged students would be guaranteed access to a high quality education across school districts.

Graves, whose district includes all of Paulding County, said, “As the husband of a teacher and the father of three middle and high school students”.