Today, the House finished debating the Student Success Act

Statement

Today, the House finished debating the Student Success Act, which changes federal education policy from the current law, known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Though the bill did give more control to the states over current law, it still represents too much control over what should be the domain of the states in terms of education policy.

Think of it this way. It may be a step forward to fix a leaking roof, and in that regard this bill was a step forward on education policy. The ultimate question, however, is whether or not the house should be built in the first place and with Washington and education I think the answer has to be no. It's been my long held belief that education policy should not be centralized because one size never fits all, and this is particularly the case in the classroom where each child is different. Policy out of DC can never recognize the distinct ways in which teachers teach and students learn across the country.

In the 2013, I supported a similar version of this bill, but at that time, Harry Reid and the Democrats were in control of the Senate and were pushing in a very different direction on education. Now with Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate, we should take this opportunity to pass a stronger bill, still knowing that the Senate will try to water it down and in that regard this bill represents a missed opportunity.

We are actually debating a law that expired eight years ago -- and in all that time, Congress has not been able to enact much-needed changes to the law. This legislation attempts to address some flaws in the current law by consolidating 65 federal education programs into one fund and sends them back to the states with fewer strings. The bill also reduces mandates on federal education requirements, such as developing standards, like Common Core, oversight of accountability tests, and limiting the use of regulations over states and local schools. While I did support several amendments to improve the bill, all of those failed and as a result, I ultimately opposed final passage. Allow me to explain my votes:

Congressman Lee Zeldin offered an amendment that allows states to withdraw from Common Core or any other specific standards. Today, Common Core is heavily-favored, but not necessarily required -- as evident in states like Texas and Virginia that refused to adopt Common Core standards. The federal government does require what are known as "college and career ready" standards, and have pushed incentives through grants and oversight to encourage states to adopt Common Core or similar amendments. The good news is this amendment passed by a vote of 373 to 57.

There was an amendment offered by Representative Mark Walker andCongressman Ron DeSantis that would have allowed states to opt-out of the programs authorized in the bill and instead get education funds as a block grant to have full flexibility to spend as appropriate. In South Carolina, education spending as a whole is close to $8 billion, of which roughly one billion comes from the federal level. However, the mandates that come along with it give bureaucrats in Washington disproportionate control. I supported this amendment because it would return the greatest amount of control back to the states. Unfortunately, the amendment failed by a vote of 195 to 235.

Another amendment was offered by Representative Matt Salmon that would allow parents to opt their students out from the federal testing requirement. Right now, federal law requires states to test every student under the federal accountability standards for students in the 3rd grade to the 8th grade and once in high school. What I've heard from parents back home is that they want the choice to decide whether their children should have to take this test. Ultimately parents should be the ultimate decision maker in how their child is educated, to include whether they want to participate in a test that does not contribute to the student's grades in school. I supported this amendment, which passed by a 251-178 vote.

Finally, there was an amendment offered by Representative Todd Rokitaand Congressman Glenn Grothman that reduces the length of this bill from six years to four years. Congress should review federal education policy more than once a decade, as has been the practice since the passage of the first federal education bill in the 1960's. Hopefully, by shortening the length of these bills, Congress will also come back and revisit the work they did and how it is impacting states. This amendment, which I supported, passed by a voice vote.

While each of these amendments that passed improved the bill, at the end of the debate I was still concerned that too many decisions were left in Washington rather than at the local level. As a result, I opposed final passage. That said, the bill passed by a vote of 218-213 and heads over to the Senate. At this point, it seems unlikely that a bill will reach the President this session, and if it does, he has threatened to veto it, so I suspect this debate will continue into 2017.

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