Douglas schools react to new education law

The Every Student Succeeds Act received bi-partisan support and passed both the house and senate by wide margins. Alexander, who also had served as U.S. Secretary of Education from 1991-1993, is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Thus, one abortion provision was not enough to prompt the president to veto a larger legacy-building bill that replaced the controversial No Child Left Behind law.

It formally ratchets down No Child Left Behind’s emphasis on standardized testing. The law bars the federal government from setting academic benchmarks.

For some the new law is still too test-centric.

“At the national level, most of the legislation is built around large metropolitan areas like Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, but being a more rural state, we have different needs and our schools look different”, West Central Superintendent Jeff Danielsen said.

According to Hopkins, parents and students may not notice many visible changes except for the reduced test taking.

“In South Dakota we expect that we’re going to care about each child…we hope to continue to do that whatever the federal legislation happens to be”, Danielsen said.

President Barrack Obama signed a new bill replacing former U.S. President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act on Thursday.

Title I, which was part of the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act, provides financial assistance to school districts and schools with high numbers or percentages of children from low-income families.

Equally important is new language, tucked into the law, about a program known as Title 1.

No Child Left Behind had a good premise: that public schools should work to help all students learn the basics. He said that in practice, it fell short or applied a cookie-cutter approach that failed to produce desired results.

This omission is clear in the law’s wording of “no Title I portability”.

This wording should come as no surprise for those on both sides of the issue as it was wrestled with while the bill was fine-tuned in recent months. I know teachers not just in this district, but across the country are stressed because of all that’s been put on their backs.

KUNM: New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system has been very contentious, they’ve been the subject of lawsuits and protests by teachers unions-what effect, if any, will this new law have on that system?

U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) voted to send the White House a sweeping bipartisan education reform bill that would return more control over education policy to the states and prevent the federal government from imposing education standards, like Common Core, on states. The law also notes that states can withdraw from the Common Core program with no financial penalty.

Here’s what Fremont education leaders had to say.