[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 178 (Wednesday, December 9, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





           CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. 1177, STUDENT SUCCESS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. SUZANNE BONAMICI

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 2, 2015

  Ms. BONAMICI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Every 
Student Succeeds Act. This legislation represents a significant 
bipartisan achievement and one that is long overdue.
   For 14 years, our nation's public schools have operated under a 
well-intentioned but flawed education law, the No Child Left Behind 
Act. This law set aspirational goals for student learning, and it 
helped call attention to persistent achievement gaps between groups of 
students. But No Child Left Behind's rigid measure of academic 
achievement--that is, the requirement that schools demonstrate 
adequately yearly progress--and the law's one-size-fits-all 
interventions for low-performing schools proved to be unworkable.
   The unfortunate consequences of No Child Left Behind's inflexible 
requirements have plagued schools in northwest Oregon and in 
communities across the country. As states were forced to demonstrate 
leaps in student achievement, an era of high-stakes testing took much 
of the joy out of teaching and learning. The drive for higher test 
scores pressured many schools to narrow their curricular offerings. 
Schools shifted resources away from arts and music, history, and 
foreign languages to bolster the tested subjects.
   This is the day that students, teachers, school board members, and 
families across the country have been waiting for--Congress has finally 
reached an agreement to leave behind No Child Left Behind.
   The Every Student Succeeds Act is not perfect legislation, but 
reaching a bipartisan agreement requires compromise. For example, the 
bill eliminates or consolidates nearly 50 education programs. Although 
some of these programs were unfunded, merging the others creates 
genuine concerns about some states disinvesting in current priorities, 
like physical education, and spending the money elsewhere. The bill 
maintains the Secretary of Education's authority to hold states 
accountable to the law, but it also places new restrictions on the 
Secretary that raise questions about the federal government's ability 
to act.
   The Every Student Succeeds Act provides a great deal of discretion 
to states and school districts to improve schools where students are 
underperforming. Certainly returning control to states and school 
districts is welcome. Local school boards, superintendents, and 
educators are best equipped to design school improvement activities 
that will be effective in their communities. Yet the bill could have 
done more to make sure that schools make timely improvements when 
subgroups of students, such as English learners, students of color, 
low-income students, and students of disabilities, continue to lag 
behind their peers.
   Despite these concerns, the Every Student Succeeds Act represents a 
significant improvement for our nation's students and schools. The bill 
authorizes increased funding, which is especially important because 
more than half of our country's public school students now come from 
low-income households. The bill rejects a proposal to make Title I 
funding ``portable,'' which would have diverted funding from 
communities with high concentrations of poverty to affluent school 
districts. And the bill includes a maintenance-of-effort requirement to 
help make sure states are adequately funding their schools.
   The Every Student Succeeds Act also eliminates No Child Left 
Behind's federal accountability system and directs states to design 
systems for identifying schools in need of additional support. 
Importantly, the bill puts in place meaningful requirements for the 
accountability systems designed by states, including a requirement that 
state systems give substantial consideration to academic achievement 
and trigger action in any school where subgroups of students are 
underperforming. In this way, the Every Student Succeeds Act remains 
true to the civil rights legacy of the original Elementary and 
Secondary Education Act. The law will continue to require states to 
identify achievement gaps between groups of students and target 
resources to schools that need more support to close achievement gaps.
   Importantly, the bill also reduces testing and the high stakes 
associated with statewide exams. The bill requires states to evaluate 
schools using multiple measures of student learning, so schools will 
not be held accountable for test scores alone. Additionally, the Every 
Student Succeeds Act establishes a pilot program for some states to 
develop alternative assessment systems. I am particularly pleased that 
the bill includes language from the Support Making Assessments Reliable 
and Timely (SMART) Act, bipartisan legislation I authored to help 
reduce testing. This provision gives resources to districts to 
eliminate the unnecessary or duplicative assessments that proliferated 
under No Child Left Behind. This provision also helps districts make 
better use of assessments by speeding the delivery of assessment 
results to educators, students, and families and by giving educators 
more time to plan in response to assessment data.
   The Every Student Succeeds Act includes support for well-rounded 
education. I worked to include a provision in this section to make 
clear that schools can use federal resources to integrate arts and 
music into STEM courses. STEAM education, which combines arts and music 
with STEM subjects, educates both halves of students' brains; it 
teaches them to think creatively while they develop technical skills. 
Highly-skilled students who are also able to develop one-of-a-kind 
solutions to problems will excel in an economy that values innovation.
   Overall, the Every Student Succeeds Act strengthens our nation's 
system of public education. The bill correctly recognizes that teachers 
and principals are skilled professionals who know what is best for 
their students. At the same time, the bill puts in place commonsense 
requirements to improve achievement among students who have 
historically been underserved by public education. In other words, the 
bill strikes the appropriate balance of returning decision making to 
states and local communities without diluting the federal government's 
role in upholding our country's promise to deliver equal educational 
opportunities and outcomes to all students.
   I would like to thank Chairman Kline, Ranking Member Scott, Chairman 
Alexander, and Ranking Member Murray for their tremendous leadership on 
this bill. The Every Student Succeeds Act is moving forward with strong 
bipartisan, bicameral support because these leaders were willing to 
find common ground for the good of our country's students and 
educators.
   I have visited schools throughout my district and spoken with 
educators and students in urban and rural communities. In each 
community I visit, I am reminded of the urgency of efforts to end the 
test-and-punish culture created by No Child Left Behind. It is a great 
honor to be able to support the Every Student Succeeds Act to chart a 
better path forward for our country's educators and students. I 
encourage all of my colleagues to join me in supporting the bill.

                          ____________________