On the recordFebruary 26, 2015
I would like to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks) for bringing forward this very important amendment that really cuts to the heart of one of the most important changes from No Child Left Behind. Mr. Chairman, as you know, No Child Left Behind had a concept called adequate yearly progress. It is a bit of a misnomer because it was anything but progress. It was a static picture of where students were. With this new bill reflected in H.R. 5 and the Democratic substitute, the goal is to look at student growth. Now, unfortunately, the Republican bill absent the Meeks amendment leaves student growth optional. The core piece of Federal education policy, from both a civil rights perspective and an education perspective, should be to ensure that for every child in our country there is accountability for the academic growth of that child each year. That is the key tenet of transparency and accountability that this amendment would restore to the underlying bill. I strongly believe that if we can pass this amendment, it would remedy one of the major inequities and setbacks in this bill. At least No Child Left Behind had universal goals, even if the goals were off the mark.
