While proponents say the new legislation provides greater authority to state and local governments than the plan championed by Bush and Kennedy, the law maintains annual standardized testing, which has been one of the chief complaints about NCLB. “We look forward to working with our education partners at the state level in setting goals that lead to success while also holding ourselves accountable if we need to adjust our strategies in order to accomplish the goals we’ve set for ourselves and our student scholars”.
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“I think of any state that’s thrilled about the passage of this law, its South Dakota because…they were going to take our waiver away”, South Dakota Secretary of Education Melody Schopp said.
One of the biggest changes will be in the amount of tests required.
“Instead, parents, teachers, and state and local education leaders will regain control of their schools”, said Kline, part of the bipartisan quartet that spearheaded the bill.
The current no child left behind act ends this year, the new bill allows for a transition year before becoming effective in 2017.
“When the STAAR results come in, I’m eager to open it, and then I’m not at the same time because I don’t want to read it and say I failed”, said Marcus Salazar, a student at Ross Middle School.
The new law eliminates the federal mandate that teacher evaluations be tied to student performance on the statewide tests.
“There’s really no way for the federal government to raise the quality of education across the nation.” said Hunter.
“Iowa and all states deserve a system of accountability and oversight that drives student learning and is based on growth and improvement”. States will have to improve those low-performing schools, and the performance standards also will be measured by dropout rates in high schools and whether there are achievement gaps between groups of students.
The new act will not eliminate the testing requirement, but it could impact the high stakes.
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The bill reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the chief federal law addressing K-12 education, and reforms numerous broken policies from No Child Left Behind, the previous version of the bill. While making no mention of the controversial Common Core standards, the legislation calls for establishing college- and career-ready standards for students to be incentivized with additional Race to the Top grants.
