Revised ‘No Child Left Behind’ Bill Signed Into Law

Obama called the ESSA “an early Christmas present” and a “Christmas miracle” as a bipartisan bill. The new law gets rid of numerous standardized testing requirements that had been in place under No Child Left Behind, and gives states more leeway in designing their own education standards.

She says the new law could be good for the state. Under the new law, the U.S. Department of Education can’t prescribe nationwide educational standards, nor can it provide incentives for states to comply with specific sets of standards.

The bill received broad bipartisan support, with the final version passing the Senate 85-12 and the House 359-64. According to Politico, fellow senators and presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders didn’t vote either; Rand Paul, who also is still running for president, voted against it. In the previous law, students were required to undergo tests in math and English every year from third to eighth grade and once all throughout high school, as well as one science exam in elementary, middle, and high school.

With the No Child Left Behind Act, teachers had to focus on getting 95 percent of their students to pass standardized tests, but now they have flexibility on how they will distribute and measure the tests.

Joined by lawmakers, students and teachers in a White House auditorium, Obama praised the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind for having the right goals.

School administrators say they are happy that students will be graded by their overall performance in school.

“We had a Tennessee mindset in the development of the actual law, and I think that is beneficial to us as a state”, said True.

“This state loves local control, and so the hope is that we turn control over to our local school districts, our local school boards”, said Marisa Perez, the State Board of Education member representing San Antonio. States will decide how to weigh tests, and whether and how to evaluate teachers.

The legislation requires that test scores be broken down by race, family income and disability status.