House Committee to Hold Hearings on New ESEA

House Hearings Mark Start of Reauthorization Process

Congress plans to kick-start the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act this week with the first in a series of hearings in a key House committee, where members pledge a “bipartisan, open, and transparent” process in rewriting the version of the law enacted under President George W. Bush.

The finish line remains a long way off in a Congress bitterly divided over issues such as health care, hurtling toward the 2010 midterm elections, and still without a specific proposal from the Obama administration about how it would revise the ESEA, currently called the No Child Left Behind Act.

Still, in announcing the hearings last week, leading Democrats and Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee declared that the NCLB act is “a law that we all agree is in need of major reform,” and that the panel would “work to ensure an excellent education is available to...