For the first time in 14 years, a new education bill is set to emerge from the U.S. Congress that will reshape the federal government’s role in overseeing K-12 education.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who played an important role in helping to craft the current legislation, applauded House passage of the bill Wednesday to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. No Child Left Behind, the latest iteration of ESEA, expired in 2007.
“Today’s vote in the House brings us one step closer to ending No Child Left Behind’s top-down, one-size-fits-all approach and re-empowering those closest to our kids to make decisions about their education,” Bennet said soon after the legislation passed the House in a 359-64 vote.
Bennet was a member of a joint House and Senate conference committee, established in mid-November, that was tasked with reconciling differences between education legislation passed this year by both the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.
The conference committee quickly moved to approve a bipartisan framework for updating No Child Left Behind.
Bennet, who previously served as superintendent of Denver Public Schools and is a current member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, worked to incorporate a number of provisions into the final reauthorization bill.
According to information from Bennet’s office, these include granting states more autonomy with designing annual accountability tests, ensuring more transparency on school funding in order to identify inequalities and providing rural school districts with greater resources to educate their students.
The new legislation will also direct states and school districts to use targeted interventions to improve the lowest-performing schools in the bottom 5 percent of state.
“This bill represents meaningful progress to help our students, our teachers and schools across Colorado,” Bennet said. “Passing this bill has been a long time coming, and it’s encouraging we’ve been able to do it with overwhelming bipartisan support.”
The Senate will take up the legislation in the coming weeks, and it’s expected to pass.