The Daily Times: Credit Alexander for passage of Every Student Succeeds
It took a while — 13 years — but the nation’s education law finally has a fix. The Every Student Succeeds Act is signed and sealed. It’s up to the nation’s educators to deliver.
This would not have happened without the determination of U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander to unlock bureaucratic shackles on teachers, allowing them to focus on their students, not their bookkeeping.
It basically is a rewrite of the 2002 No Child Left Behind education law that sometimes made schools seem more like testing grounds than centers of learning.
The change made it through Congress with a strong bipartisan effort. Leading that effort was a man with more than a passing interest in education. Consider Alexander’s personal history, beginning in his hometown of Maryville. Son of a kindergarten teacher and an elementary school principal. Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. President of the University of Tennessee.
Yes, you can say there was more than interest that drove Alexander to lead the way to reforming the failed reform of the U.S. education system. Experience had a lot to do with it. So did a love of learning.
The Senate passed the bill Wednesday 85-12. President Barack Obama’s signature was scripted Thursday.
Alexander, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, characterized the achievement this way: “Today we are unleashing a new era of innovation and excellence in student achievement — one that recognizes that the path to higher standards, better teaching and real accountability is classroom by classroom, community by community, and state by state — and not through Washington, D.C. …
“With his signature today, the president has joined the Senate and the House in sending a Christmas present to 50 million children and 3.4 million teachers in 100,000 public schools across this country — something they’ve been eagerly awaiting.”
So have parents. Congratulations, Senator Alexander.
