LA education leader supports new federal education law

On the stage with him were Republican Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, and Sen.

NCLB was signed by President George W. Bush in early 2002 and was, itself, an update of a much older law – the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

The law, called the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed on Thursday by President Barack Obama represents a sweeping overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act and its one-size-fits-all policies that dictated accountability and improvement for all of the nation’s schools.

President Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act during a White House ceremony on Friday.

The new law also ends federal mandates related to teacher evaluations.

Obama says, “The goals of No Child Left Behind, the predecessor of this law, were the right ones”. But he says in practice it fell short and used a cookie-cutter approach. However, the legislation is created to give schools and teachers more room to prevent the testing from crowding out instruction time.

Although the new legislation grants states more autonomy in fixing low-performing schools and overseeing accountability initiatives, Snowberger said he is pleased with the legislation’s focus on student academic growth as an important measure of school and district performance.

President Obama is expected to sign the “Every Student Succeeds Act” into law Thursday after the Senate cleared the controversial program on Wednesday. And it would require schools to report the results by students’ race, family income, and disability status.

“They’ve said, ‘States – you decide what it takes for a teacher to be certified and in a classroom.’ And in a state like ours, where we’ve got a thousand teacher shortage, we need that flexibility”, Owens said.

Educators say giving the State more freedom is a plus and could be very beneficial if the states make the right choices.

Earlier this year, Michigan students took the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, a new assessment to measure their grasp of core subjects. The act has several components and will allow individual states to help develop the criteria to identify and assist failing or underachieving schools compared to a single national model.

No Child has been up for reauthorization since 2007, but previous attempts to renew the law have been caught in a broader debate over the federal role in public education.

Then, they’ll have to come up with a plan, and find a way to implement that plan in our schools.