Providing for Consideration of H.R. 529, Section 529 College Savings Plans Amendments; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5, Student Success Act; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you to talk about and support H.R. 5, the Student Success Act.

Mr. Speaker, this is legislation to replace No Child Left Behind, to restore local control over education, and to empower parents and local education leaders to hold schools accountable for effectively teaching students.

I spent last week in my district, and I visited elementary and high schools, specifically schools that would be affected by the Student Success Act. These schools were located in some of the most impoverished areas of my district. I listened in classrooms, held forums to hear from parents and local education leaders, and spoke to teachers and administrators about the challenges they are facing. What I heard across the board was that the Federal Government and their compliance issues in the classroom are holding back our educators from effectively teaching our students.

Top-down education mandates have failed to help students and have forced educators to waste valuable time and resources filling out paperwork and worrying about compliance with Federal requirements. Instead of this one-size-fits-all approach, we need policies that enhance teachers' abilities to focus on the individual needs of the students. We need bottom-up reforms that give authority to the parents, teachers, and local education leaders, who work with their children and students every day and who know them best.

H.R. 5 includes a number of conservative reforms to push back against the growing reach of the Federal Government into schools and to restore local control. It replaces the current national accountability system for school performance and replaces it with State-led performance standards. It gets rid of more than 65 unnecessary or ineffective Federal education programs, repeals Federal requirements for teacher quality, and protects local and State autonomy over decisions in the classroom. H.R. 5 returns responsibility to parents, States, and local leaders to hold schools accountable instead of Washington bureaucrats.

I saw that example work in a city that is in one of the most impoverished areas of my district, where parents actually lined up at 3:30 in the morning to enroll their students into theme schools. Each elementary school was broken up into a theme. The superintendent there had no idea that parental involvement would be that significant. I was there to witness the success of this theme school concept. I asked: Where did this idea come from? It did not come from Washington. It did not come from the Federal Government. It came from the creativity of the teachers and from the input of the parents and of the local administrators.

Mr. Speaker, no one knows the needs of students better than the people who work and spend time with them every day. By empowering parents, teachers, and local education leaders, H.R. 5 takes strong steps forward in putting the control of education back in the right hands and in helping to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a good education. There is no debate today that every child deserves a good education. The debate is whether the Federal Government is in charge or whether we empower our local citizens to get the job done.

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