U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called on President Obama to veto a Republican-sponsored reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act if it should come before him. The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed H.R. 5, dubbed the Student Success Act and authored by House education committee chair, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., on a straight party-line vote of 221 to 207.
It’s a sharp reversal of the broad bipartisan support surrounding the first incarnation of NCLB, which was sponsored by such unlikely allies as liberal Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy in the Senate and conservative Republican John Boehner of Ohio in the House. The new bill is also a departure from the strong accountability measures built into Bush’s version of NCLB.
The GOP bill would curtail the prominent federal role in education put in place by NCLB. It would eliminate Adequate Yearly Progress, a key provision of NCLB that requires all students in Title 1 schools, which serve a majority low-income children, to score proficient or better on statewide standardized tests. The bill also does away with the “highly qualified teacher” requirement of NCLB, which requires teachers to hold both bachelor’s degrees and teaching credentials. Instead, it allow