Heidi Alexander: “the American people have a lot on their minds this week about things happening in our world and in our country, but…”

“the American people have a lot on their minds this week about things happening in our world and in our country, but today we turn our attention to something at home. The Senate and Congress--and I believe the President--by the end of the week will have a Christmas present for 50 million children and 3.4 million teachers in 100,000 public schools across this country, something they have been eagerly awaiting. Today the Senate should pass by a large margin our bill to fix No Child Left Behind. A lot has been said about how the bill repeals the common core mandate, how it reverses a trend toward a national school board that has gone on through the last two Presidential administrations, and how it is the biggest step toward local control in a quarter of a century for public schools. That is all true. The legislation specifically prohibits the U.S. Secretary of Education from specifying in any State that it must have the common core standards or any other academic standards--not just this Secretary but future Secretaries. It gets rid of the waivers the U.S. Department of Education has been using to act, in effect, as a national school board, causing Governors to have to come to Washington and play ``Mother May I'' if they want to evaluate teachers or fix low- performing schools or set their own academic standards. And it is true that it moves a great many decisions at home. It is the single biggest step toward local control of schools in 25 years.…”