Issue Position: No Child Left Behind

Issue Position

In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act was established to reform programs authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the principal federal law impacting K-12 education. The most comprehensive education reform overhaul ever enacted, No Child Left Behind represents the first real, bipartisan effort to bring true accountability and flexibility to federal education programs. It reflects four essential pillars of education reform: accountability, flexibility and local control, funding for what works, and expanded parental options.

No Child Left Behind is scheduled for reauthorization in the 110th Congress, and congressional Republicans will use the opportunity to continue making fiscally-responsible reforms to improve student achievement and close the achievement gaps that have persisted for decades between disadvantaged students and their peers. Republicans will work to ensure that when it comes to a child's education, decisions are left to those who know best how to make them: parents, local school districts, and states.

As a former member of the William S. Hart Union High School District Board of Trustees, Mr. McKeon is a strong supporter of public education and of efforts to ensure that our children have access to the most advanced educational opportunities possible. Mr. McKeon believes that it is clear that the more than 15,000 school districts around the nation have differing needs when it comes to ensuring their students have quality teachers in the classroom. Mr. McKeon's priorities for reauthorization are to strengthen parental choice and supplemental education services (SES), expand state and local flexiblity, bolster teacher quality, protect taxpayer dollars, incorporate reliable growth models, establish reliable and accurate graduation rates and to enhance American competitiveness.

Mr. McKeon believes that we must continue the work of instituting historic changes to our schools and take this new opportunity to improve the lives of our nation's school children.

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