Last week, Congress made great progress on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Here’s a brief summary.
House of Representatives On Wednesday, July 8, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Student Success Act (H.R. 5) with a number of amendments that were offered to attract additional votes:
An amendment to set the authorization period of the bill for three years, from FY2016-FY2019 passed.
An amendment to allow parents to opt their child out of state assessments required under ESEA, and to exempt opt-out students from schools’ participation rates passed. The National Alliance joined other organizations in opposition of this amendment.
An amendment to send ESEA funding to states via a block grant, and allow states to use funding for any education purpose under state law (the “A Plus” Amendment) failed. (A similar amendment also failed in the Senate.)
The National Alliance issued this statement on House passage of H.R. 5, which praises the bill for including bipartisan charter school language, but notes that the provisions around accountability, interventions, and funding for school improvement need to be significantly strengthened in final law. Senate The Senate kicked off debate last Tuesday, July 7, on the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), and have already considered more than a dozen amendments. Through the amendment process, we continue to improve the bill for charter schools. In addition to securing language that will allow charter school leaders representation in Title I discussions at the federal level, we also secured a sponsor for an amendment to ensure that charter school representatives are formal stakeholders in state and district Title I plans. Thank you to Senators Gardner (R-CO) and Carper (D-DE) for securing the inclusion of this amendment in ECAA and kudos to Kendall Massett, of the Delaware Charter Schools Network, for recruiting Senator Carper as a sponsor for this bipartisan amendment! This memo from our partners at the Penn Hill Group provides a recap of all the Senate amendments adopted last week. This Week The Senate will continue to debate amendments and possibly complete its work this week. More amendments will be offered and we anticipate debate on provisions to strengthen accountability and to change the federal-to-state Title I formula. There may also be a parental “opt-out” amendment, identical to the one passed by the House, which that National Alliance will also oppose. We continue to be optimistic that the long-overdue reauthorization of ESEA will continue and that we will see a bill on President Obama’s desk by the end of year! Gina Mahony is Senior Vice President, Government Relations at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
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