President Obama signed what’s called the Every Student Succeeds Act that replaces the No Child Left Behind standards that have dominated education for more than a decade.
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In a move that overturns President George W. Bush’s landmark No Child Left Behind Act, President Obama signed a new education bill into law on Thursday.
“The goals of No Child Left Behind were the right ones – high standards, accountability, closing the achievement gap, making sure every child was learning”, Obama said.
There were joined on stage by their Democratic colleagues on their committees, Sen.
The new law includes an amendment from U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., who served as a negotiator of the bill as a Member of the House and Senate Conference Committee.
Durbin also pointed to parts of the law that he said expand access to preschool.
The law has several components, including reforming testing standards, educational funding and ensuring the drop-out rate continues to decline.
“There are a couple key questions that we really don’t have the answer to yet”, he said. According to Politico, fellow senators and presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Bernie Sanders didn’t vote either; Rand Paul, who also is still running for president, voted against it. Cruz said the legislation doesn’t go far enough to get the federal government out of the nation’s schools.
The law will change the way teachers are evaluated and how the worst performing schools are driven to improve.
The new act will not eliminate the testing requirement, but it could impact the high stakes.
In conclusion, McCluskey says the ESSA is “probably” better than No Child Left Behind – “but that isn’t saying a whole lot”. Students take standardized tests every grade from third to eighth. Additionally, it encourages states to limit the amount of time kids spend taking standardized assessments.
Roby spent the last 2.5 years building support for the provisions, introducing the standalone Defending State Authority Over Education Act in May 2013 to end federal coercion of education policy.
No more Common Core – maybe.
This time, however, Congress not only approved a sweeping school reform bill that stripped the federal government of much of its involvement in education, it did so by overwhelming margins.
The legislation requires that test scores be broken down by race, family income and disability status.
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It’s now up to the states.
