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Rollback of NCLB to get vote By: Libby A. Nelson

A bill to roll back No Child Left Behind, the far-reaching 2001 education overhaul that expired six years ago but remains in effect, will finally get a vote in the House of Representatives later this week after clearing a procedural hurdle Wednesday night—and despite grumbling from some of the chamber’s more conservative members.

The House Committee on Rules voted to allow debate on the Student Success Act and a slew of amendments. The House will begin considering the rules for debate and the amendments Thursday, and a final vote is expected Friday. This is the first time an overhaul of K-12 education funding will hit the House floor since No Child Left Behind in 2001. But the bill isn’t likely to go anywhere from there.

The Senate is working on its own rewrite of No Child Left Behind. And President Obama vowed Wednesday to veto the House bill. While the law is expired, it’s still the law of the land — although 40 states have been granted Education Department waivers from complying with some of its requirements. A

The House bill, the Student Success Act, aims to repeal federal progress goals, consolidate programs and halt the push for common education standards. But until late Wednesday, it wasn’t even clear that the law had the full support of the House Republican caucus. Some more conservative Republicans had argued that the law didn’t go far enough in taking the federal government out of K-12 education. “You’ve put me in a very difficult situation,” said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), who objected strongly to some aspects of the Republican bill, particularly requirements that states evaluate teacher quality.

“This is not a perfect bill, and the chairman admits that. I think most everybody does,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), vice chair of the Rules Committee, as debate began on Wednesday. “Everybody’s heard me say: If I had my way about it, the federal government wouldn’t be involved in education in any fashion.” Still, she said, the bill is a move in the right direction.

However Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the leading House Democrat on the education committee, was harshly critical of the bill — so much so that Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) asked if the bill’s Republican author had anything right in the 585-page legislation. “I don’t know,” Miller responded, saying there were “basic flaws” in the measure.

Congress will consider 26 amendments, out of 76 originally proposed. Among those with the most buzz is a proposal from Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who has made the bill a top priority in recent weeks. It would give states the option of turning federal aid for poor and disadvantaged students into a variation on a voucher. Federal money would follow those students if they transferred to another public school or charter school, but not a private school.

The current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act already allows students to transfer from failing public schools to other public schools, including charters. From the 2004-05 school year to the 2010-11 school year, about 858,000 students nationwide used that option, Education Department statistics show. In any given year, however, the number was but a sliver of those eligible to do so: It never reached more than 3 percent of the eligible pool of kids.

Assigning a dollar value for a student transferring to another school would be difficult, considering the complexity of the funding formula that governs the allocation of money for disadvantaged students. And it would defeat the purpose of Title I money: It’s intended to give schools with a concentration of disadvantaged students more money, said Mary Kusler, a lobbyist for the National Education Association. Having money follow an individual student would dilute any effect of extra resources and staff the money could buy.

Other amendments would stop the federal government from requiring states to evaluate teachers and clarify that states that opt out of getting federal money don’t need to comply with federal requirements.

The bill gets mixed reviews from advocates. It has the support of the American Association of School Administrators, but the group isn’t a fan of Cantor’s amendment. The National School Boards Association has urged Congress to pass the bill.

But other groups – including some not traditionally on the same side on all education issues – have strongly objected to aspects of the legislation. The American Federation of Teachers launched an ad campaign in Cantor’s district Wednesday against the bill. In an ad cosigned by the Education Trust, which advocates for more education funding but doesn’t agree with the AFT on all issues, the two groups call the bill “a historic abandonment of our commitment to leveling the playing field for disadvantaged children.”