Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 5, the Student Success Act. This legislation will reduce federal interference in education, restore control to local school districts and states, empower parents and support effective teachers. Following passage of H.R. 5, Congressman Bill Flores (R-Texas) issued the following statement:
“During the past four and a half years, the Obama administration has dramatically expanded federal authority over America’s schools. It has also significantly accelerated federal education spending, resulting in a tripling of overall funding per student since 1965. Unfortunately, the increases in federal control and funding have interfered with local control, increased federal bureaucrat involvement in our education systems, restricted parent input into their children’s educations, and failed American students.”
“For the first time in more than a decade, the House has approved legislation to revamp K-12 education law. This bill protects state and local autonomy over decisions in the classroom by limiting the authority of the secretary of education. This protection includes an elimination of the secretary of education’s ability to inappropriately coerce state decisions to adopt the Common Core or other federal bureaucrat designed standards or assessments. Central Texans know that improved student achievement will only occur when local governments are free from burdensome federal mandates and are not beholden to federal bureaucrats for education dollars; this bill is a step in the right direction.”
As passed by the House, the Student Success Act will:
- Eliminate the flawed Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) system and replace it with state-determined accountability systems, thereby returning authority for measuring student performance to states and school districts.
- Eliminate federally mandated actions and interventions currently required of poor performing schools, giving states and districts maximum flexibility to develop appropriate school improvement strategies and rewards for their schools.
- Allow Title I dollars to follow disadvantaged students, at the option of individual states. This landmark ‘portability’ option promotes parental choice and allows all Title I schools to receive funds to promote the academic achievement of students in need.
- Repeal federal bureaucrat designed teacher requirements and grant states the flexibility to develop their own teacher evaluation systems to better gauge an educator’s effectiveness, if they so choose.
- Maintain the requirement that states and school districts issue and distribute annual report cards, including disaggregated data on student achievement and high school graduation rates, while also streamlining data reporting to ensure meaningful information is easily available to parents and communities.
- Support opportunities for parents to enroll their children in local magnet schools and charter schools, and enhance statewide parental engagement.
- Eliminate more than 70 existing elementary and secondary education programs to promote a more appropriate federal role in education through the block grant program described below.
- Consolidate a myriad of existing K-12 education programs into a new Local Academic Flexible Grant, which provides funding to states and school districts to support local priorities that improve student achievement.
Congressman Bill Flores represents the 17th District of Texas and is an entrepreneur, former energy executive, Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and member of the House Budget, Natural Resources and Veterans’ Affairs Committees.
