Dive Brief:
- Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has released a 400-page draft bill for the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind — or, as it's also known, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
- The draft, which was obtained by Education Week, outlines two different options when it comes to dealing with tests, which in many ways became the crux and most contentious part of the 2001 bill.
- One option gives states agency to decide how and when they want to test students and wouldn't require those ideas to be submitted to the U.S. Secretary of Education for approval. The other would maintain the status quo of having states test annually in grades three through eight and once during high school.
Dive Insight:
As Education Week explains, Alexander sees this first draft is a way to start conversations around testing. The very different plans are going to get a lot of opinions, especially since they are so black and white. Either mandated test or a "sort of choose-your-own testing-adventure option," as Education Week explains the first choice.
Interestingly, in both options, districts could use their own assessments (as opposed to the state's) as long at they get approval from the state. What would this mean for the Common Core Accountability Tests? Weren't millions just spent on the PARCC and AIR testing consortiums in the name of having uniform tests? The bill briefly addresses the Common Core by saying the U.S. secretary of education, currently Arne Duncan, "shall not have the authority to mandate, direct, control, coerce, or exercise any direction or supervision."
The draft bill would also make teacher evaluations based on test scores optional, do away with School Improvement Grants and education technology grants, and allow Title I dollars meant for low-income schools to follow students to the school of their choice.