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House votes to overturn ESSA accountability, teacher-prep rules

Feb 09, 2017 5:15 am

Andrew Ujifusa is reporting at Politics K-12 the U.S. House of Representatives voted Tue., Feb. 7, to overturn the accountability regulations and rules for teacher-preparation programs that are part of the Every Student Succeeds Act. If the resolution overturning the accountability rules is successful, it could have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. Department of Education, state officials and local school districts, Ujifusa writes. The rules in question address school ratings, the timeline for identifying and intervening in struggling schools, indicators of school quality beyond test scores and other issues. A similar resolution in the Senate is expected in the near future. The Obama administration released a draft the ESSA accountability rules in May, and the regulations were finalized in November. The Trump administration stopped implementation of the final rules last month. If the regulations are overturned, Congress is barred from issuing similar regulations before lawmakers reauthorize both the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Higher Education Act. On the House floor Tuesday, Rep. Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, said abandoning the ESSA rules would undo state-level work, "... creating mass chaos and uncertainty in public education, and destroy the civil rights safeguards that Republicans and Democrats worked so diligently to put in the Every Student Succeeds Act." Read the full story at Politics K-12, an Education Week blog.