Murray, a former preschool teacher, and Alexander, a former university president and education secretary, agreed to work together on a new proposal, leading to new legislation passed by the Senate on Wednesday.
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The bill would keep federally mandated statewide reading and math exams in grades three to eight and one test in high school.
The White House said the President will sign the measure Thursday morning.
“We have been a front-runner and a leader in our state accountability system, championing reducing testing time but making sure that we have an annual assessment that matters”, she said. The measure 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.
Many states, including Tennessee, have been operating for years under waivers distributed by the U.S. Department of Education that provide flexibility from No Child Left Behind mandates.
All votes against the bill, 64 in the House and 12 in the Senate, were from Republicans who said it did not go far enough in eliminating Washington’s reach into the state’s classrooms. Al Franken, D-Minn., adding that the measure known as the Every Student Succeeds Act will feed education success.
The bipartisan compromise will return states the authority to decide how to use students’ test scores in assessing teachers and schools.
“It should be noted that, aside from the Common Core State Standards, there was no other set of standards being developed by a consortium of states that included enough states to meet the criteria to receive “high” points”, the report stated.
Testing: Schools would still have to test students every year in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school. Districts will no longer be forced to close schools and remove staff if students miss the cut on test scores.
Katherine Clark, a US representative from MA, was one of seven Democratic representatives from the House who was chosen to work with Senate members on the final version of the bill. There also have been bills introduced in the state legislature which, if successful, would allow charter schools to take over failing or under-utilized schools, he said.
“This marks a fundamental shift in the way the federal government looks at education”, said Sen.
One of the outcomes of the new law is expected to be a reduction in the amount of standardized testing that today’s students are subjected to. “(No Child Left Behind) was a tremendous stress on students and teachers, and parents have been upset about this”, said South Carolina State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the legislation was a significant step in the right direction.
Lily Eskelsen García – president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union – called the bill’s passage an “end to our national nightmare and beginning of something so much better for kids”.
Standards: The bill says states should still have challenging academic standards – what skills students should learn and when they should learn them – but it forbids the federal government from recommending or using incentives to get states to adopt a particular set.
But instead of federal mandates on what targets schools needs to be meeting, states would be responsible for working with schools and local districts to develop achievement goals and accountability plans.
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However, it still requires states to focus special attention on the bottom 5 percent of struggling schools, especially those with the highest dropout rates. The Obama administration offered grants through its Race to the Top program for states that adopted strong academic standards for students.
