House Republicans Pass Partisan ESEA Bill
Republicans Ignore Voice of Growing Opposition to Regressive Education Policies
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the Student Success Act (SSA or HR 5), the Republican-sponsored reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), by a 221-207 margin. Instead of a visionary plan for how to promote the kinds of education reforms we need to pursue over the next decade, what we got instead was an ideological treatise opposed by everyone from the Chamber of Commerce to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
“If you’re an education reformer that cares about accountability, teacher evaluation, and equity, the bad news is you just lost a vote in the House of Representatives,” said DFER Policy Director Charles Barone. “The good news is that, as it turns out, you have more support from other advocates, business, and civil rights groups than at any time in history.”
The Student Success Act, drafted by Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), and championed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), would eviscerate federal accountability in K-12 education were it to be signed into law. The bill does not require schools to set goals for student progress or for narrowing achievement gaps. The bill enables persistently low-performing schools to continue unabated and unimproved. Worse, HR 5 does nothing to correct vast inequities in funding and resources that exist among our nation’s schools, and locks education funding in at sequester levels.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) offered an amendment in substitute that would have replaced the entirety of the Republican bill with one drafted by Democrats, but the amendment failed a vote along party lines. Democrats in the Senate have introduced their own version of ESEA reauthorization, the Strengthening America’s School Act (SASA, S. 1094), which includes many of the same accountability, teacher, and equity reforms contained in Miller’s proposal. SASA was reported out of committee in June and may be brought to the Senate floor later this year.
Democrats for Education Reform is deeply disappointed that the House of Representatives approved such dangerously flawed legislation and chose to abrogate their responsibility to our nation’s students. We are proud, however, of the Democrats who pushed to do the right thing on education rather than the easy thing, and elated by the show of support from across the political spectrum for real reform via the House Democratic proposal. We hope that the Senate will move forward with its proposal that builds upon the successes of the current law, corrects its flawed and outdated provisions, and aligns much more with the needs of children than with the self-interests of adults.