The US Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor and Pen­sions is dis­cussing this bill now! Call the com­mit­tee mem­bers and tell them to vote NO, should this come to a vote.

Repub­li­cans by Rank
Lamar Alexan­der (TN)
Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Richard Burr (NC)
John­ny Isak­son (GA)
Rand Paul (KY)
Susan Collins (ME)
Lisa Murkows­ki (AK)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Tim Scott (SC)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Bill Cas­sidy, M.D. (LA)

Democ­rats by Rank
Pat­ty Mur­ray (WA)
Bar­bara A. Mikul­s­ki (MD)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Al Franken (MN)
Michael F. Ben­net (CO)
Shel­don White­house (RI)
Tam­my Bald­win (WI)
Christo­pher S. Mur­phy (CT)
Eliz­a­beth War­ren (MA)

Now that Alexan­der and Mur­ray have reached an “agree­ment” we fear that this bill has a bet­ter chance of passing:

Alexan­der, Mur­ray Announce Bipar­ti­san Agree­ment on Fix­ing “No Child Left Behind”
“What the Every Child Achieves Act does:

• Strength­ens state and local con­trol: The bill rec­og­nizes that states, work­ing with school dis­tricts, teach­ers, and oth­ers, have the respon­si­bil­i­ty for cre­at­ing account­abil­i­ty sys­tems to ensure all stu­dents are learn­ing and pre­pared for suc­cess. These account­abil­i­ty sys­tems will be state-designed but must meet min­i­mum fed­er­al para­me­ters, includ­ing ensur­ing all stu­dents and sub­groups of stu­dents are includ­ed in the account­abil­i­ty sys­tem, dis­ag­gre­gat­ing stu­dent achieve­ment data, and estab­lish­ing chal­leng­ing aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards for all stu­dents. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is pro­hib­it­ed from deter­min­ing or approv­ing state stan­dards.” THIS IS NOT REALLY STATE CONTROL, NOW IS IT?!?
• “Main­tains impor­tant infor­ma­tion for par­ents, teach­ers, and com­mu­ni­ties: The bill main­tains the fed­er­al­ly required two tests in read­ing and math per child per year in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well as sci­ence tests giv­en three times between grades 3 and 12. These impor­tant mea­sures of stu­dent achieve­ment ensure that par­ents know how their chil­dren are per­form­ing and help teach­ers sup­port stu­dents who are strug­gling to meet state stan­dards. A pilot pro­gram will allow states addi­tion­al flex­i­bil­i­ty to exper­i­ment with inno­v­a­tive assess­ment sys­tems with­in states. The bill also main­tains annu­al report­ing of dis­ag­gre­gat­ed data of groups of chil­dren, which pro­vides valu­able infor­ma­tion about whether all stu­dents are achiev­ing, includ­ing low-income stu­dents, stu­dents of col­or, stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties, and Eng­lish learn­ers.” THE FEDERAL GOV. WILL CONTINUE TO MANDATE STANDARDIZED TESTS. ALTHOUGH, STATES WILL BE ALLOWED TO EXPERIMENT ON OUR CHILDREN!
• “Ends fed­er­al test-based account­abil­i­ty: The bill ends the fed­er­al test-based account­abil­i­ty sys­tem of No Child Left Behind, restor­ing to states the respon­si­bil­i­ty for deter­min­ing how to use fed­er­al­ly required tests for account­abil­i­ty pur­pos­es. States must include these tests in their account­abil­i­ty sys­tems, but will be able to deter­mine the weight of those tests in their sys­tems. States will also be required to include grad­u­a­tion rates, a mea­sure of post­sec­ondary and work­force readi­ness, Eng­lish pro­fi­cien­cy for Eng­lish learn­ers. States will also be per­mit­ted to include oth­er mea­sures of stu­dent and school per­for­mance in their account­abil­i­ty sys­tems in order to pro­vide teach­ers, par­ents, and oth­er stake­hold­ers with a more accu­rate deter­mi­na­tion of school per­for­mance.” STATES MUST STILL USE STANDARDIZED TESTS IN ACCOUNTABILITY — THE FEDERAL GOV. WILL PERMIT STATES TO INCLUDE OTHER MEASURES. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WILL PERMIT!!
• “Main­tains impor­tant pro­tec­tions for fed­er­al tax­pay­er dol­lars: The bill main­tains impor­tant fis­cal pro­tec­tions of fed­er­al dol­lars, includ­ing main­te­nance of effort require­ments, which help ensure that fed­er­al dol­lars sup­ple­ment state and local edu­ca­tion dol­lars, with addi­tion­al flex­i­bil­i­ty for school dis­tricts in meet­ing those require­ments.” FLEXIBILITY ONLY IF THE DISTRICTS MEET FEDERAL REQUIREMENTS!
• “Helps states fix the low­est-per­form­ing schools: The bill includes fed­er­al grants to states and school dis­tricts to help improve low per­form­ing schools that are iden­ti­fied by the state account­abil­i­ty sys­tems. School dis­tricts will be respon­si­ble for design­ing evi­dence-based inter­ven­tions for low per­form­ing schools, with tech­ni­cal assis­tance from the states, and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is pro­hib­it­ed from man­dat­ing, pre­scrib­ing, or defin­ing the spe­cif­ic steps school dis­tricts and states must take to improve those schools.” STATES GET TO FIX LOWEST PERFORMING SCHOOLS BASED PARTIALLY ON STANDARDIZED TESTS THAT NO ONE CAN SEE!!
• “Helps states sup­port teach­ers: The bill pro­vides resources to states and school dis­tricts to imple­ment activ­i­ties to sup­port teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, and oth­er edu­ca­tors, includ­ing allow­able uses of funds for high qual­i­ty induc­tion pro­grams for new teach­ers, ongo­ing rig­or­ous pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for teach­ers, and pro­grams to recruit new edu­ca­tors to the pro­fes­sion. The bill allows, but does not require, states to devel­op and imple­ment teacher eval­u­a­tion sys­tems.” MONEY IS PROVIDED FOR ONGOING “PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT”.
• “Reaf­firms the states’ role in deter­min­ing edu­ca­tion stan­dards: The bill affirms that states decide what aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards they will adopt, with­out inter­fer­ence from Wash­ing­ton, D.C. The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment may not man­date or incen­tivize states to adopt or main­tain any par­tic­u­lar set of stan­dards, includ­ing Com­mon Core. States will be free to decide what aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards they will main­tain in their states.” THIS MEANS NOTHING. STATES WILL STILL BE REQUIRED TO USE AND TEACH TO STANDARDS. OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION IS OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION REGARDLESS OF WHICH STANDARDS THE STATES CHOOSE TO SUBJECT OUR CHILDREN TO!

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment does not need to reaf­firm the states’ role in edu­ca­tion, period.
MAKE THIS GO VIRAL!!!!!