House Democrats Stand Up for Educational Accountability and Equity
President Issues Veto Threat to Republican ESEA Bill
Today, the House Republican leadership is expected to bring the Student Success Act (SSA or HR 5) to the floor of the House of Representatives. HR 5 would eviscerate accountability for federal K-12 education programs designed to serve at-risk students, abandon the federal role in remedying resource inequities, block grant funding streams now targeted on key education priorities, and lock in devastating sequestration cuts to education.
SSA lets states completely off the hook on setting goals for student progress and for narrowing achievement gaps. The bill would let even the most persistently low-achieving schools continue business as usual, requiring little or no intervention by states to change them. Further, HR 5 makes no effort to remedy vast inequities in funding and resources that exist among our nation’s schools.
Last night, President Barack Obama issued a statement saying he would veto HR 5 if it came to his desk. We urge you to join fellow Democrats in voting against HR 5 and instead vote for the substitute offered by Congressman George Miller that would retain the law’s focus on providing equal opportunity for all students regardless of race, income, national origin, disability, or ZIP code.
During the run up to today’s vote–particularly at the June 19th committee markup of the bill and yesterday at Rules Committee–House Democrats have repeatedly taken action and spoken out against the proposed erosion of accountability and equity contained within the bill. Here are some examples:
- George Miller (D-CA-11), Ranking Democrat, House Education and Workforce Committee: “This bill would let states lower standards, sending an unambiguous signal that college and career readiness is not a national priority. This bill doesn’t count something as fundamental as graduation rates as part of accountability systems. This bill lets schools teach students with disabilities to different, lower standards. And this bill doubles down on the Ryan Republican budget by gutting education funding on top of cuts from sequestration, which have already taken billions away from needy schools”;
- Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX-15): “I am troubled that the Republican bill walks away from English language learners, which is a growing population in our country by removing measurable performance targets for content mastery and second language acquisition–that’s very important”;
- Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA-3): “While No Child Left Behind has some flaws, two of its most valuable aspects are the ability to see how different groups of students are performing and holding districts and states accountable for providing a quality education for all groups of students”;
- Representative Susan Davis (D-CA-53): “HR 5 has less accountability, lower expectations, and reduced access. I wonder whether anyone thinks this is a good idea.”
- Representative Jared Polis (D-CO-2): “We should give school districts more flexibility to design meaningful school improvement reforms than they have under No Child Left Behind, but we cannot give school districts the flexibility to do nothing at all to change a school that is failing its kids year after year.”;
- Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-1): “The goals of No Child Left Behind are worth preserving–we should not be ignoring any of our children in our public school system, and too many are still falling through the cracks…Block granting would make equity less likely and instead make it more likely that students will get opportunities depending on where they live or who their parents are”;
- Representative John Tierney (D-MA-6): “Those that argue that everything should be left to the states, I think, ignore history and ignore who’s responsibility it is for dispatching federal taxpayer money and then making sure that the goals that are intended are accomplished…In fact, when it was left to the states, that’s when courts had to step in and mandate that states actually live up to their obligation to educate their students who were financially disadvantaged or were minorities or were disabled.”
Democrats for Education Reform is proud of the stand these Members of Congress and others have taken on behalf of our nation’s students. We strongly urge all Democratic members of the House of Representatives to join these courageous leaders in standing up for equity and accountability by voting against HR 5.