The Federal government claims, “The Student Success Act (H.R. 5) will restore local control, support effective teachers, reduce the federal footprint, and empower parents.”

A summary of the bill states H.R. 5 will:

1. “dramatically reduce(s) the federal role in education by returning authority for measuring student performance and turning around low performing schools to states and local officials.”

2. “Instead of Washington bureaucrats making decisions, the legislation will allow superintendents, school leaders, and local officials to make funding decisions based on what they know will help improve student learning.”

3. “maintain(s) separate funding streams for the Migrant Education, Neglected and Delinquent, English Language Acquisition, Rural Education, and Indian Education programs, but merges them into Title I of the law.”

and

4. “the bill supports the development and implementation of state and locally driven teacher evaluation systems that provide states and school districts the tools necessary to measure an educator’s influence on student achievement.”

Republican Tod Rokita says, “Many Hoosiers will also be pleased to know that the Student Success Act prohibits the Secretary of Education from coercing states into adopting Common Core, again returning accountability and standards to state and local school districts, where it belongs.”

While this deregulation seems like a good idea, leaving an issue as important as education to the 50 individual states given the current data on the transience of the American family, is an irresponsible response to a very complex problem that can only be solved by uniting educational efforts with a Constitutional amendment making the provision of an excellent, child centered, free and public education a guaranteed right of every child in America.

As well, the adoption of this Bill comes only after Federal Common Core Standards have been created and forced upon states and will continue to drive the teaching and evaluation process of most inner city, high poverty, districts as they scramble to access Federal entitlement dollars while wading through mounds of State regulations handed down by corporate influence.

We cannot allow our elected officials, at the Federal, State, or local level to wash their hands of our children’s educational future.

Join the Movement to Save Our Children!