House Passes Partisan NCLB Rewrite

The House of Representatives passed its version of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) reauthorization recently.  No Democrats voted for it and twelve Republicans voted against it.   The bill would “maintain the NCLB law's signature testing schedule and its practice of breaking out student-achievement data by particular groups of students (such as English-language learners and students in special education).”  But, “States and school districts would get a lot more say on how they hold schools accountable for the progress of all students, including special populations.”

The National School Boards Association commented:

“HR 5 clearly acknowledges that the footprint of the federal government in K-12 education must be reduced.”

Two questions should be addressed by readers, as they consider this news:

•Should Congress and the President have sufficient control over the nation’s education policy and programs as to constitute a national school board?  Sen. Lamar Alexander thinks not.

•Should the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind/ESEA include what Rep. George Miller of California calls a Title I portability rule that amounts to an “imitation voucher?”  The House thinks it should and passed Rep. Eric Cantor’s (Virginia) amendment to “allow parents to take Title I dollars to any public school of their choice, including charters.”

Here’s the source I used for this article:

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2013/07/house_passes_partisan_nclb_rew.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1