Obama to Congress: Your bill would harm our education system

“I want to work with both parties in Congress to replace No Child Left Behind with a smarter law that addresses the overuse of standardized tests, makes a real investment in preschool, and gives every kid a fair shot in the new economy,” Obama said. “It’s pretty commonsense that an education bill should actually improve education. But as we speak, there’s a Republican bill in Congress that would frankly do the opposite.”

This week, the House Committee on Education passed its rewrite of the controversial 2002 bill out of committee and on to the House floor for a full vote the week of Feb. 24.

Under the new bill, which was voted out of committee along party lines, states would have more control over how to test their students. The bill would strip much of the federal government’s ability to conduct oversight of the standardized testing, and would allow parents to use Title I funding to move their child from a low-performing school to either another public school or charter school of their choice.

The current No Child Left Behind law has been heavily criticized in the 13 years since its implementation for the overuse of testing and the amount of time teachers have had to spend preparing their kids for tests instead of teaching them. The bill expired in 2007 and has continued as unchanged law since then.

Republican House lawmakers said that the rewrite, named the “Student Success Act,” would 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,” according to a committee fact sheet on the legislation.

“It is time to place control of our nation’s classrooms back in the hands of the parents and educators who know their children best,” said Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Chairman Todd Rokita, R-IN.