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Senate Votes to Build on Utah’s Success in Education Reform

“With the Every Child Achieves Act, Congress now has an opportunity to correct the shortcomings of No Child Left Behind”.

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But that still leaves local schools beholden to education officials in Washington.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., a former superintendent of Denver Public Schools, filed the most amendments to the bill and helped shape it as part of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. “But the Student Success Act does little to assist youngsters in Minnesota who’re struggling in faculties with too few assets”. “It eliminates (No Child Left Behind’s) one-size-fits-all approach to education, but importantly, it includes the requirement for annual assessments”, Bennet said. “That consensus is this: Continue the law’s important measurements of academic progress of students but restore to states, school districts, classroom teachers and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement”.

The House of Representatives approved a more conservative education bill last week.

Sen. Chris Murphy hopes to amend a new federal education bill so that problem schools and under-performing students could be more clearly identified and given the help they need.

Senator Hatch has also proposed an amendment that would apply Utah’s successful “Pay for Success” program on the national level, providing a flexible funding stream that would allow schools, districts, non-profits, and small businesses to develop evidence-based proposals based on the specific needs of students and the community. House lawmakers are expected to vote on a handful of noncontroversial bills, including legislation to provide loans for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy, at 6:30 p.m.

Timothy Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, said the debate over what should replace No Child Left Behind has been overshadowed in Arizona by local issues, including Gov. Doug Ducey’s proposal to pump $2 billion of state funding into schools over the next decade and a shortage of teachers that is only going to get worse.

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A bipartisan effort to reform the nation’s foremost education law is coming to fruition on the heels of state legislation to reduce testing requirements for students.

Groundbreaking education changes may happen next week as Congress tackles the biggest education law in the nation No Child Left Behind