Obama signs education law, “No Child Left Behind”

Under the new law, students still must be tested in reading and math, but the difference now is that state and local officials would have greater leeway in determining how to respond to underachieving schools. “It is important that Congress protect the prerogative of states to set educational standards that best suit their students”.

“I know it’s easier for parents to talk to a local school leader and a local legislator at the Capitol”.

While the Every Student Succeeds Act will continue the basic testing requirements of No Child Left Behind, it will end federal efforts to tie student scores to teacher evaluations. Lawmakers have touted the brand new law as a more versatile approach to student testing & school accountability, once more making states answerable for fixing under-performing schools. Holding everybody to high standards for teaching and learning, empowering states and school districts to develop their own strategies for improvement, dedicating resources to our most vulnerable children.

To make sure all children get a fair shot at a quality education, states will be required to intervene in the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, in high schools with high dropout rates and in schools with stubborn achievement gaps.

“It moves decisions about whether schools and teachers and students are succeeding or failing out of Washington, D.C., and back to states and communities and classroom teachers, where those decisions belong”, Alexander said Tuesday. “We welcome this opportunity to work with the state in implementing further programs and supports that are part of ESSA, and we look forward to partnering with other school districts in Nevada to comply with this new law”.

President Obama signed the “Every Student Succeeds” Act Thursday, an education-reform bill that passed both houses of Congress with rare bipartisan support. “Now we won’t have to submit a waiver to do good things for kids”, he said. These include a unanimously-approved amendment written by Cochran and Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to all authorize the use of federal funds to improve and modernize school libraries.

Local educators say one of the biggest changes is most of the decisions made in terms of student achievement, the accountability is passed down to the States’ and the local school corporations.

No Child Left Behind is no more.

“The problem we ran into was high-stakes testing”. Since 2012, the administration has offered grants through its Race to the Top program for states that adopted strong academic standards for its students.

Cynthia Saunders, Deputy Superintendent for Instructional Services in Manatee County says, “If there’s a large enough populous to see change come, now is the time to voice their opinion”.