The Student Success Act: Passed in House of Representatives
As many of you may know, there is broad, bipartisan agreement that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) needs to be overhauled, if not entirely replaced. For those of you who have not yet heard, though, The Student Success Act (H.R. 5) is to help do this, by reducing “the federal footprint and restor[ing] local control, while empowering parents and education leaders to hold schools accountable for effectively teaching students” within their states.
This represents the federal government’s most serious attempt to overhaul NCLB yet, since it was last rewritten in 2001. Although this Act was initially pulled from the floor losing GOP support last spring, near the end of this past summer the House passed the Act (see more information here).
As per another post here, this has all come about given “[t]he federal government’s involvement in local K-12 schools is at an all-time high.” For example, in 2013, the federal government spent nearly $35 billion on K-12 education, under the condition that states and districts, for example, adopt growth or value-added models (VAMs) to hold their teachers accountable for that which they do (or do not do well).
Hence, The Student Success Act is to primarily:
- Replace the current national accountability scheme based on high stakes tests with state-led accountability systems, returning responsibility for measuring student and school performance to states and school districts.
- Protect state and local autonomy over decisions in the classroom by preventing the [U.S.] Secretary of Education from coercing states into adopting Common Core or any other common standards or assessments, as well as reining in the secretary’s regulatory authority.
- Strengthen existing efforts to improve student performance among targeted student populations, including English learners and homeless children.
- Ensure parents continue to have the information they need to hold local schools accountable.
Kudos go out to U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan for pushing the federal government’s role, and more specifically their accountability-based “initiatives,” so far (e.g., via Race to the The Student Success Act: Passed in House of Representatives | VAMboozled!: