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House votes to overhaul No Child Left Behind
By: Geoff Bennett

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The GOP-led House passed HR 5, a bill known as the Student Success Act, marking the first time since 2001 that an education bill made it to the floor of Congress.

Back then, President Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law with strong bipartisan support. That law dramatically expanded the federal government’s role in the nation's public schools.

Fast forward 12 years and the debate over education, like so many other partisan fights in Congress, centers on the proper role of the federal government.

“I have the attitude that there is no role for the federal government in education. If I had my way about it, we would have gone a lot further with this legislation,” said North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx.

New York Representative Paul Tonko said, “I think that the federal government has the ability to greatly assist the locals and the states with education and allows everyone to have that equal shot at the great equalizer that education is.”

The House bill rolls back federal performance standards, in part, allowing states to set their own academic benchmarks create teacher and principal evaluations and decide what to do about failing schools. Democrats say the bill guts education funding and allows states to ignore its poorest school districts.

Tonko said, "This is really a failure of commitment to the nation’s students and it’s a failure of commitment to the business community. And it’s why groups that are business minded, there were concerns expressed by the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable. Of course! They need a quality work force."

But Republicans who want the government out of the public school system say what's really failing students is a misguided federal bureaucracy.

“We have the right to opportunity in this country. We don’t have the right to equal outcomes,” Foxx said.

The House education bill is not expected to make it through the Democratic-led Senate, where senators are working on their own revision of No Child Left Behind. The White House has already threatened a veto.