Education

S. 1177 - Every Student Succeeds Act (or the Bill Formerly Known as No Child Left Behind): YES. George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" has been a disaster. Its stated goal was to bring every child to grade-level proficiency by 2014. Instead, for the first time in 25 years student achievement is declining with just 33 percent of 8th graders proficient in math and 34 percent in reading. So what to do?

House Chambers, Washington D.C.
February 25, 2009

M. Speaker:

When it was announced that Randolph Churchill had been hospitalized to remove a benign tumor, a parliamentary wag commented, “What a pity it is to remove the only part of Randolph that isn’t malignant.”

As I look at this bill, I can only remark what a pity it is to remove the only part of the nation’s education system that actually works.