EDUCATION POLICY

ESEA Reauthorization Sails Through House.

The Washington Post (12/3, Layton) report that in a 359 to 64 vote on Wednesday, the House passed “a bipartisan K-12 education bill” that would replace No Child Left Behind and “significantly shift authority over the nation’s 100,000 public schools from the federal government to states and local school districts.” While the Senate still needs to approve the measure, “the House vote was seen as the higher hurdle because of resistance from some conservative Republicans, who said the bill did not reduce the federal role enough.” All of the “no” votes came from GOP lawmakers. The Post quotes Education Secretary Arne Duncan saying, “We are encouraged that the bill passed by the House today would codify the vision that we have long advocated for giving a fair shot at a great education to every child in America – regardless of zip code. The bill that the House passed today reflects more of that vision than nearly any observer expected.”

The New York Times (12/3, Huetteman, Rich, Subscription Publication) says the measure “jettisons No Child’s prescribed goals and punishments, and allows states and school districts to set their own goals and to decide how to rate schools and what to do with those that underperform.” The Times cites “a White House official” who said the President “plans to sign it when it reaches his desk.” The Times reports that Duncan “said the new bill would ‘reduce overtesting and one-size-fits-all federal mandates.’”

The AP (12/3, Kerr) reports that the vote was “overwhelming” and followed “years of failed efforts.” The bill would “sharply scale back the federal role in American education” but “retain the testing requirement in the 2002 No Child Left Behind law that many parents, teachers and school districts abhor.” The AP reports that Duncan “praised the bill as a critical step toward protecting the civil rights of students,” quoting him saying, “It enshrines in law the expectation that where schools serve students poorly or have low graduation rates over extended periods of time, and where groups of students aren’t making progress, there will be accountability and action for change.”

Alyson Klein writes at the Education Week (12/3) “Politics K-12” blog that the bill would reduce the Federal role in education “for the first time since the early 1980s.” Under the bill, states and districts would be compelled to “turn around their lowest-performing schools, schools with high dropout rates, and schools where so called “subgroups” of students—like English-language learners, students in special education, and racial minorities—are struggling.” She writes that Duncan “issued a sunny statement after the passage of a bill that many say would cut his successors off at the knees.”