News Home

Legislation that supporters say will significantly reduce federal control of local classrooms and has drawn support from congressional lawmakers on opposite sides of the political spectrum — U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for example — is heading to President Barack Obama’s desk.
                             
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, by a vote of 85-12, a week after the U.S. House passed it 359-64.

North Carolina schools stand to receive more money under a provision added to the bill by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican.

But the larger impact is that the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act will be dramatically overhauled, limiting the federal government’s role in education policy but keeping the annual testing requirements for public-school children. The bill returns to the states the authority to decide how to use students’ test performance in assessing teachers and schools, and it ends federal efforts to encourage such academic standards as Common Core.

“As a grandmother, educator and former school board member, I know students are best served when teachers, parents and administrators are the driving force behind improving education,” Foxx said last week after the House vote. “This legislation does just that by reducing the federal footprint in the nation’s classrooms and restoring control to the people who know their students best.”

On the Senate floor Wednesday, Warren said: “We have only one goal in mind: To give all our children the best possible education. The challenge has been to figure out the right role for the federal government to do that. This bill … moves away from rigid standardized tests, and it respects the vital work that teachers do every day.”

Burr added a provision, aides said, that fixes an outdated part of the funding formula. Under the flawed formula, money was allocated based on 2001 population numbers, without factoring in North Carolina’s population growth. As a result, aides said, students were not receiving their fair share of funding.

Money follows students under the Burr provision, spokeswoman Taylor Holgate said. Schools in North Carolina stand to receive an additional $24 million a year once it is phased in over seven years.

“This is a big deal,” Burr said.

“Making sure that low-income children, regardless of where they live, get their fair share of funding could be the education civil-rights issue of our generation,” he said. “Congress has the obligation to properly fund schools that need this funding the most.”

Divided among North Carolina’s 115 school systems, it’s unclear how much of an effect an additional $24 million would have but officials with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools said they could use every extra dollar.

Theo Helm, the spokesman for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, said the school system could use “any additional support from federal funding, especially given the reduction in Title I funding this year.”

Title I is federal program designed to support schools with high percentages of low-income students.

Under ESSA, money previously reserved for school-turnaround programs would be rolled into the Title I program, possibly freeing up money for schools facing the challenges that many students have living in poverty.

Helm said the school system also appreciates the reauthorization’s continued focus on subgroups of students, such as minorities, economically disadvantaged and English-language learners. The school system has made closing achievement gaps among different groups of students a priority.

Among those in the House who voted against passage of the bill were four members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation: U.S. Reps. Walter Jones, R-3rd; Mark Walker, R-6th; Mark Meadows, R-11th; and George Holding, R-13th.

Walker voted against the bill because he thinks education is a decision best made at the state and local level, as evidenced by his A-PLUS Act, which allows states to opt-out of federal mandates but maintain federal funding, his spokesman Kyle Hall said. Among the new federal programs, Hall said, the prekindergarten program alone will cost $250 million annually.

“You cannot give education power back to the states by creating more federal programs,” Hall said.

http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/nc-local-schools-should-benefit-from-education-overhaul-bill/article_ca8caa54-11ad-526f-8c0e-7f7071887eba.html