Senate Committee Passes Bipartisan No Child Left Behind Reform Bill

Employee Relations, Jobs, Skills and Training

The Senate HELP Committee this week passed a bipartisan bill to reform No Child Left Behind, which sponsors assert would end the states' need for waivers from the current law.  Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Ranking Democrat Patty Murray (D-WA) say their Every Child Achieves Act would fix the problems with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), with Sen. Alexander noting that it will "continue the law's important measurements of academic progress of students but restore to states, school districts, classroom teachers and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement."  Most notably, the bill would:

• Require states to develop their own accountability standards;
• Maintain some federally required reading and math tests;
• Continue the annual reporting of disaggregated data about whether all students are achieving, including low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners; and
• Provide grants to states to help improve low performing schools.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are expected to vote on their version of NCLB reauthorization soon but thus far have not secured bipartisan support.  Since its enactment in 2001, the law has become highly unpopular and politically polarizing, resulting in nearly all states operating under waivers from the U.S. Department of Education to escape some of the law's most unworkable requirements while Congress has been unable to agree upon reforms.