Advocates, Policymakers Split on House ESEA Draft

Proposal's prospects subject of hot debate

Education advocates and policymakers are sharply divided on whether House Republicans' bare-bones approach to federal K-12 policy, as outlined in a draft bill issued last week, is a move in the right direction—or even a politically viable approach to rewriting the decade-old No Child Left Behind Act.

Civil rights groups and advocates for special populations of students took a big swing last fall at a bipartisan bill approved by the Senate education committee to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and they found the House measure even more distressing.

But groups that represent state and school district officials—including the Council of Chief State School Officers, the American Association of School Administrators, and the National School Boards Association—generally found much to like in the draft, which was introduced Jan. 6 by U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee. ( "House ESEA Draft Would Reduce Federal School Role," ...