Scott Garrett : I voted today to give control of our children’s education back to parents, teachers, and school boards by supporting H.R. 5, the Student Success Act.
New Jersey has many of the best schools and educators in the United States, yet the parents I speak to are concerned about the negative impact that federal programs like Common Core are having on the quality of our students’ education. For years, Washington has dangled federal funds in front of states and forced them to adopt their one-size-fits-all standards—this has to stop. The Student Success Act is an important first step towards ending the cycle of federal coercion and allowing New Jersey to determine its own success.
Rep. Mark Walker / @repmarkwalker / July 08, 2015
Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican, represents North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Innovation starts locally—not in Washington.
Yet, over the past few years, we have witnessed the unprecedented expansion of the federal government into our classrooms.
Decades of regulations, mandates and rules have been piling up on our educators, but failing to improve our students’ education.
Congress is set to reconsider, and potentially reauthorize, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
This law outlines federal programs for K-12 education and was last reauthorized in 2002 as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which further expanded Washington’s intrusion in our schools by creating new federal mandates.
No Child Left Behind also expired in 2007.
This means the Obama administration has been able to operate without certain limitations and has strong-armed states into complying with its liberal education agenda.
Thankfully, we have the opportunity to get Uncle Sam out of the business of micromanaging our schools from the top-down and return control to our local families, educators and officials.
This week in the House, my colleagues and I are revisiting the way Washington approaches our K-12 federal education policy with consideration of H.R. 5, the Student Success Act.
This bill repeals and reforms many failed education policies like the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) mandate, but I challenge that we can do even better for our children and future generations.
Conservatives have the largest majority in Congress that we have had in years, and we have a real opportunity to stand against Washington’s culture of bureaucracy and make a difference in our federal approach to education—let’s ensure we truly return education decisions back to the local-level.
We all agree that local communities—and ultimately parents—are best equipped to meet the unique needs of each student. Accordingly, they should be able to decide how best to utilize federal funding.
This is why I introduced the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) amendment to the Student Success Act with Rep. Ron DeSantis (FL-06). The A-PLUS amendment would give states maximum flexibility by allowing them to opt-out of federal mandates and programs while retaining federal funding.
We can strengthen the Student Success Act’s goal of removing the federal government from our classrooms with this simple, common sense policy change.
States and taxpayers should be able to keep their dollars, opt-out of federal education programs without repercussion and focus on the needs of their students and communities.
Greater flexibility will yield greater accountability. A-PLUS would truly restore local control of education.
The status quo is failing our children and we need to ensure each child has access to a quality education and the opportunity to achieve their dreams.
Increasing local control of education and empowering parents and children through school choice initiatives is how we break these patterns and foster innovation in our school systems.
A-PLUS would restore state and local control of education and put parents, teachers and school leaders back in the driver’s seat.
Education is not a one size fits all process. The government mandates are not needed in all schools. Many would be successful without federal/state interference.
The federal government should get out of education. The state government should be involved to the point that they identify and take over troubled districts. We need to identify the districts that are not successful and focus attention on them. If a district is performing well they should be left alone. Of course there needs to be a standard for identifying successful districts, maybe NCLB is good enough.
The current shotgun approach of pushing common core on all districts and testing students annually is a huge waste of time and money.