Democratic and Republican members of the House Education and Labor Committee announced plans today for a bipartisan reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA), along with Ranking Member John Kline (R-MN), Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education, and Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-DE), the senior Republican on that subcommittee, issued the following joint statement:

“Today, we’re announcing a bipartisan, open and transparent effort to rewrite No Child Left Behind – a law that we all agree is in need of major reform. It will start with a series of hearings in the coming weeks to explore the challenges and opportunities ahead as we work to ensure an excellent education is available to every student in America. With a real commitment to innovation, we invite all stakeholders who share our serious interest in building a world-class education system to email us their suggestions.”

The House is expected to schedule hearings on ESEA throughout the spring, with the first hearing to be held on February 24 focusing on charter schools.  The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is also rumored to be setting their schedule of hearings on ESEA for March.

The House Committee will also be accepting comments from stakeholders regarding ESEA reauthorization at eseacomments@mail.house.gov. The deadline to submit your comments is March 26.

Tags: Congress, federal legislation, NCLB/ESEA, Public Policy

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Legislation, Public Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.