DECEMBER 9, 2015, 11:43 AM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2015, 11:18 PM
FROM STAFF AND NEWS SERVICE REPORTS |
WIRE SERVICE
In New Jersey, the federal education reform bill that seems certain to get the president’s signature Thursday means local and state educators, not the federal government, get to determine what to do to save a failing school, and the threat of costly sanctions for slumping schools would go away.
What’s unlikely to end in New Jersey, education experts said on Wednesday, is the reliance on students’ test scores to evaluate how well teachers are performing, a point of fierce dispute between New Jersey administrators and unions that the reform legislation relegates to the states.
The Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly, 85-12, to approve legislation rewriting the landmark No Child Left Behind education law of 2002.
It was hailed as a “Christmas present” for 50 million children across the country by Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who leads the Senate Education Committee.
One key feature of No Child remains: Public school students will still take the federally required statewide reading and math exams. But the new law encourages states to limit the time students spend on testing, and it will diminish the high stakes for underperforming schools.
Under No Child Left Behind, schools that failed to meet annual progress targets could be shut down or converted into charter schools, a policy that critics said led schools to focus too heavily on tests.
Schools that don’t meet annual progress targets, under the new legislation, no longer will be considered to be failing and won’t be subjected to federal sanctions.
States will be required to intervene in the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, in high schools with high dropout rates and in schools with stubborn achievement gaps.
David Hespe, the state education commissioner, said the biggest change under the reform legislation would be the new flexibility permitted to states to help struggling schools. “We can develop our own interventions,” Hespe said.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/education-law-rewrite-passes-congress-1.1470503