Press Releases

The House of Representatives today approved the Student Success Act (H.R. 5). Introduced by Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) and Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee Chairman Todd Rokita (R-IN), the legislation replaces the current K-12 education law, No Child Left Behind, with conservative reforms that would reduce the federal role, restore local control, and empower parents and education leaders to hold local schools accountable.

“For too long, Washington’s priorities have outweighed what parents, teachers, and local leaders know is best for their children. Today, we took an important step in a bold, new direction,” Chairman Kline said. “After years of working with education stakeholders and members of Congress, I’m pleased the House has advanced responsible reforms that would give the American people what they deserve: a commonsense law that will help every child in every school receive an excellent education.”

“Today, we rejected the Washington-knows-best approach that has plagued K-12 classrooms for years,” Chairman Rokita said. “The Student Success Act stops this administration and future administrations from promoting a backdoor agenda that includes Common Core. More importantly, the bill takes control away from Washington bureaucrats and puts it back where it belongs: with moms, dads, teachers, and state and local leaders who can directly and meaningfully deliver a quality education to students.”

Chairman Kline continued, “The passage of the Student Success Act moves us closer to replacing a flawed law that has not delivered on its promises. I look forward to continuing this important effort and I am confident – as we have shown in the past – we can find common ground and send a bill to the president’s desk that will have a lasting, positive impact on America’s families.”

The Student Success Act as passed by the House:

• Replaces the current national accountability scheme based on high stakes tests with state-led accountability systems, returning responsibility for measuring student and school performance to states and school districts;

• Protects state and local autonomy over decisions in the classroom by preventing the secretary of education from coercing states into adopting Common Core or any other common standards or assessments, as well as reining in the secretary’s regulatory authority;

• Ensures parents continue to have the information they need to hold local schools accountable;

• Provides states the ability to use federal funds to examine the number and quality of assessments given to students and empowers school districts to administer their own assessments with state approval;

• Eliminates 69 ineffective, duplicative, and unnecessary programs and replaces this maze of programs with a Local Academic Flexible Grant to help schools better support students;

• Empowers parents with more school choice options by continuing support for magnet schools and expanding charter school opportunities, as well as allowing Title I funds to follow low-income children to the traditional public or charter school of the parent’s choice;

• Provides parents the ability to opt children out of annual testing and exempts schools from including students that have opted out in the schools’ testing participation requirements; and

• Strengthens existing efforts to improve student performance among targeted student populations, including English learners and homeless children.

To learn more about the Student Success Act, click here.

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