Shuster Votes to Reduce Federal Footprint in Education

Statement

Congressman Bill Shuster (R-Hollidaysburg) helped pass H.R. 5, the Student Success Act on Wednesday. This legislation replaces No Child Left Behind with conservative minded reforms to our nation's education system.

"In order to allow our students to reach their full potential we need to remove the federal government's oversized footprint in our schools, and to empower our teachers and parents with the opportunity to improve our education system we need reforms," said Congressman Shuster. "I have been a strong opponent of measures such as Common Core, and the Student Success Act ensures that the Obama Administration cannot force states to enact those standards or others that may advance their agenda while holding back our students."

The Student Success Act replaces big government policies with state focused accountability standards, eliminates more than 65 ineffective and duplicative programs, and supports new measures that allow local government to evaluate teacher effectiveness instead of bureaucrats in Washington. This legislation also prohibits the federal government from trying to coerce states into supporting policies like Common Core. In regards to Common Core, Congressman Shuster also helped advance an amendment to the legislation that ensures that the Secretary of Education cannot penalize states that choose to withdraw from Common Core.

"This nation can do better for our students, and while No Child Left Behind was based on good intentions there's broad bipartisan agreement at every level that it needs replaced," continued Shuster. "By reducing the federal government's role in education we are allowing the state and local governments, who know what works best for their young people, to make the changes and improvements in curriculum and teaching methods as they see fit. The legislation also takes away the executive branch's ability to go around Congress in implementing more of their misguided educational policies."

Additional conservative reforms designed to empower states, parents, and teachers in the legislation include an elimination of the federal Adequate Yearly Progress Metric and increased flexibility for school districts in developing academic standards.

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