John Kline (R-Minn.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.), all of whom were on stage with the president.
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Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Senate Republican negotiator of the bill. He was a chief architect of the bill along with Democratic Sen.
“The Every Student Succeeds Act unfortunately continues to propagate the large and ever-growing role of the federal government in our education system – the same federal government that sold us failed top-down standards like Common Core”, he said in a statement.
The Every Student Succeeds Act – a combination of the Senate-passed Every Child Achieves Act and the House-passed Student Success Act – passed the Senate on an overwhelming 85-12 vote.
ESSA keeps annual math and reading testing requirements for Grades 3 though 8, but cuts back on high school testing to once before graduation.
“This law ends the federal obsession with high-stakes testing that narrowed what was taught in classrooms and did little to close the achievement gap”, said UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who attended the signing ceremony. Hofmeister also says the new law will strengthen Oklahoma’s control over teacher evaluations, assessments, and accountability.
It also prohibits the federal government from imposing the “Common Core” model on schools.
There are risks that states may set goals too low or not act quickly enough, said Daria Hall, vice president for government affairs and communication at the Education Trust.
The new bill will reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law overseeing public education across the country.
Joined by lawmakers, students and teachers in a White House auditorium, Obama praised the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind for having the right goals. Holding everybody to high standards for teaching and learning, empowering states and school districts to develop their own strategies for improvement, dedicating resources to our most vulnerable children. He also said the new provision eliminated “unnecessary standardized testing” for students nationwide. If one group of students was struggling, it would be transparent in the test results, which helped highlight inequality in districts.
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While S.1177 requires states to adopt academic standards for math, reading, science, and other subjects the state chooses, the legislation restores state control over setting these standards. But the act gives states the freedom to choose how to evaluate teachers and how to hold schools accountable for students’ performance on these tests. States, however, would be required to intervene in the nation’s lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, in high school “dropout factories”, and in schools with persistent achievement gaps – something Democrats insisted on.
