The new law will significantly reduce the legal authority of the education secretary, who would be legally barred from influencing state decisions about academic benchmarks, such as the Common Core State Standards, teacher evaluations and other policies.
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U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the No Child Left Behind law in the East Room of the White House on February 9, 2012, in Washington, D.C. Obama signed a bipartisan rewrite of the law Thursday.
The law will change the way teachers are evaluated and how the poorest performing schools are pushed to improve. “In the past we’ve been judged just on how well students do on one day on one test, but now we can also base it on things like ROTC” – Reserve Officer Training Corps – “and leadership programs, and training students to be good citizens”.
“We’re going to maintain at this point, and see what the state comes down with”, said Cindy Stuart, Hillsborough County School Board Member.
The Every Student Succeeds Act does keep some federal mandates. 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.
Although the federally mandated reading and math exams in grades three to eight and in high school continue, legislation expected to be voted on by the Senate on Wednesday encourages states to set caps on overall testing.
So now, the message from Washington to the states is this: You will have no one to blame but yourselves if your failing schools don’t improve or if you allow local districts to shun tougher standards or better tests.
Republicans and Democrats joined together, responding to citizens throughout our great nation including here in New Mexico, to move past the era of so-called “education reform” into a new era of school excellence and improvement.
He and Amy Beneski, a lobbyist for the Texas Association of School Administrators, said they are excited that the rewrite may give additional flexibility to a commission the Legislature created this year to develop new ways to assess students and hold public schools accountable. “So we’re having a laser-like focus on those children and communities, which far too often are African American or Latino, who are not being served well educationally”, Secretary Duncan told NBCBLK. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), and Reps. For the first time since No Child Left Behind was enacted almost 14 years ago, ESSA empowers educators as trusted professionals to make school and classroom decisions, while keeping the focus on students most in need.
The Every Child Succeeds Act has been described as a true compromise in that it addresses the concerns Republicans and Democrats have had with No Child Left Behind but does not make anyone completely happy.
“Several aspects included in the re-authorization are already in place in Tennessee”, Sharp said. This bipartisan provision creates a program for the objective of supporting and developing programs that provide Native Language Immersion opportunities for students at pre-K through postsecondary education levels.
President Obama has officially signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act, once and for all doing away with the long-expired No Child Left Behind Act. It also allows school districts to use fifth-year program partnerships to allow students to participate in concurrent enrollment in the year after their senior year.
Education officials around the state are praising Congress for approving the Every Student Succeeds Act. These provisions also support training for school staff and volunteers to help them recognize the signs of behavioral health problems in students and refer them for appropriate services.
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The new law also restricts the U.S. Department of Education from mandating or encouraging states to adopt Common Core State Standards. Senators passed it 85-12, one week after it cleared the House by a margin of 359-64.
