U.S. Senate Passes Major Education Reform Bill That Restores Power to States

Press Release

The U.S. Senate today passed a significant re-write of the nation's K-12 education law that included several key provisions authored by Senator Jack Reed. The Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, was approved by the Senate in a bipartisan 81-17 vote, and includes a number of Senator Reed's education priorities, including access to effective school library programs, enhanced professional development for teachers and principals, and stronger family engagement initiatives.

The bill seeks to fix the broken No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education law by providing states with more flexibility to set goals for their schools and eliminating the one-size-fits-all provisions of NCLB. It would also help ensure all students have access to a high-quality public education, while addressing high-stakes testing, empowering states to develop multiple measures for school accountability and reduce the reliance on test scores as the sole measure of school success, and including federal protections to help ensure students graduate from high school ready for college and career.

Last week, the Senate kicked off its education debate by unanimously approving an amendment authored by Senator Reed to encourage states and school districts to integrate school library programs into their plans for improving student academic achievement. The Reed amendment built on provisions in the underlying bill by giving states and school districts the option to address the development of effective school library programs as part of their Title I plans, and allowing states and school districts to use their Title II funds to support instruction provided through effective school library programs.

Additionally, Senator Reed played a significant role in rewriting the program that supports professional development for teachers and principals, emphasizing equitable access to experienced, effective educators through induction, mentoring, and job-embedded professional development. Reed was also successful in getting some provisions of his No Child Left Inside Act to support environmental literacy into the base bill, and he worked to strengthen family engagement in education by including provisions from his Family Engagement in Education Act in the final bill.

"Our challenge and our responsibility is to create and support learning environments that enable young people to hone their talents, discover their skills, and pursue their passions, and this bipartisan education bill advances those fundamental goals," said Senator Reed. "The Every Child Achieves Act isn't perfect, but it is an improvement. It maintains the critical transparency for results and high expectations for all students that were the hallmarks of No Child Left Behind, while updating the parts of the law that have become unworkable and counterproductive. At its core, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is about more than the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. It is about preparing young people for what comes next: postsecondary education, careers, and a lifetime of learning and civic engagement."

Reed was also able to include provisions of his Core Opportunity Resources for Equity and Excellence (CORE) Act legislation in the ECAA, which will bring some long-overdue transparency to resource equity, requiring states to report on key measures of school quality beyond student achievement on statewide assessments, including: student access to experienced and effective educators, access to rigorous and advanced coursework, availability of career and technical educational opportunities, and safe and healthy school learning environments. During the debate on the bill, Reed offered a bipartisan amendment that sought to establish an accountability mechanism for measuring access to these CORE education resources, but the amendment failed on a mostly party-line vote.

"I am convinced that if we provide schools with equitable resources and equal access to those resources, support our teachers and principals, and engage parents in their child's education, students will thrive. I am pleased I was able to strengthen and improve upon this education bill by working in a bipartisan way with the lead sponsors, members of the committee, and my colleagues on the Senate floor. I believe this bill will vastly improve the way we approach education in the country, and will put our young people on a clearer path to sustained achievement both inside and outside of the classroom," added Reed.

Source