House Ed Approves Student Success Act to Replace NCLB

In July 2013, the House passed Representative John Kline’s (R-MN) Student Success Act, known as a “No Child Left Behind rollback.” No House Democrat supported the legislation, however, and it died in the Senate.

Almost a year and a half later, on February 11, 2015, Kline’s Student Success Act passed the House Education Committee and is once again headed for the House floor for a vote.

Details on Student Success Act amendments and motions can be found here.

Three proposed amendments in particular caught my attention. The first is Number 20: “college and career ready standards for all students.”

Common Core.

It was defeated, 16 yeas to 21 nays.

So, no Common Core written into the Student Success Act.

Another amendment, Number 17, would have provided federal funding for assessments aligned to the content standards proposed in Number 20.  This amendment was offered and withdrawn (not brought to a vote).

I also noticed a third amendment, Number 19, on setting federal conditions for charter school authorization, including “a system of periodic evaluation and certification of public chartering agencies using nationally-recognized professional standards” or a state agency established and held to such standards, and “the annual filing and public reporting of independently audited financial statements including disclosure of amount and duration of any nonpublic financial and in-kind contributions of support.”

Accountability for charters– and that would have included disclosure of private monies.

It, too, was defeated, this time 15 yeas to 22 nays.

In sum: No “college and career ready standards”; no associated, federally-funded, “college and career ready” assessments, but charters remain under the accountability radar.

A mixed, Republican-driven bag.

Voting tended to follow party lines, and House Education Committee Democrats feel that Kline should have allowed hearings on the bill before sending it to the House floor. Also, Democrats note that every amendment proposed by a Democrat on the House Education Committee was blocked.

It almost sounds like America once again has two political parties inside the educational arena.

Almost.

Still waiting for one or the other to dump privatization and denounce the standardized test score as The Evidence of educational value.

_______________________________________________

Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of the ed reform whistle blower, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education.