advertisement

SSN on Facebook SSN on Twitter SSN on YouTube RSS Feed

Politics

No Child Left Behind Rewrite? No, No, Says White House

February 12, 2015 - 6:00pm

Dont expect big changes to come to the 14-year-old No Child Left Behind Act -- at least, not any time soon. Late Wednesday the House Education and the Workforce Committee passed a bill making significant changes to the NCLB Act, but on Friday the White House said the bill was a no-go.

The bill, called the Student Success Act, largely aimed to reduce federal involvement in schools. If passed, it would replace the nations current accountability scheme based on high-stakes tests with state-led accountability systems. The Student Success Act would give states more flexibility in education, returning responsibility for measuring student and school performance to states and school districts.

One provision of the bill would prohibit the secretary of education from coercing states to adopt the controversial Common Core State Standards, which have received significant backlash nationwide amid fears of federal overreach in the nations education system. In Florida, the Florida Department of Education made nearly 100 changes to the standards and rebranded them as the Florida Standards.

But White House officials gave the big red stamp to the bill on Friday, saying it would have disastrous fiscal consequences for schools around the country. The report targets House Republicans for advancing legislation that would cement recent education cuts and take funding from schools that need it most.

After an economic crisis that hit school budgets and educators hard, we cannot just cut our way to better schools and more opportunity, read the report.

White House officials contended the bill would result in huge cuts -- to the tune of $7 billion less over six years -- to schools nationwide.

Several amendments made their way through the committee -- one proposed by U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., pushed for immigrant students in an amendment which would give schools more time to raise proficiency levels of English learners before schools are penalized if they dont meet achievement levels.

"My amendment ... provides many immigrant children adequate time to learn the language before their scores are held against their schools and teachers," he explained.

White House officials said it was important to invest more in schools when we are asking more of them, pointing to an additional $2.7 billion in Elementary and Secondary Education Act programs set aside in President Barack Obamas 2016 fiscal year budget.

The presidents budget also continues to call for historic expansions in access to high-quality preschool for all children, reads the report. It supports the presidents landmark Preschool for All proposal, providing $75 billion over a 10-year period, while the House Republican bill provides no new resources for preschool.

The bottom line, says the White House, is that the House bill is no good for students nationwide.

The House bill under consideration marks a retreat from high standards for all students and would virtually eliminate accountability for the learning of historically underserved students, a huge step backward for efforts to improve academic achievement, reads the report.

The bill will be considered by the full House the week of Feb. 24.

Reach Tampa-based reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen

Comments are now closed.

politics
advertisement
advertisement
Live streaming of WBOB Talk Radio, a Sunshine State News Radio Partner.

advertisement