“Every Child Succeeds Act”

away with “no child lef behind” , 13 years after then president george w. bush signed it into law. critics say it gave washington too much say in educating american children.. and that it focused too much on testing. tonight, abc-seven is looking at why the new law got so much support from republicans and democrats. abc-7’s ashlie rodriguez has the story developing now: the key word is flexibility. the ‘every student succeeds act’ takes the power from washington d.c. and returns it to the states to decide their own rules. rewriting no child left behind has been on el paso isd superintendent juan cabrera’s mind since he discussed possible changes with president obama last march. early bird gets the worm so i’m already telling everyone at episd, get your hands on the act, tell us what you know about it, lets get on the phone and call austin and washington and see what kind of resources we can access for our local kids. before the changes, schools faced penalties for poor standardized test scores. now, testing is still required, but states decide the consequences. the new law says you have to have a dashboard of indicators that look at that whole child. mind, body character, those are the things that can really inspire kids. now, texas will judge its own schools. in 2012, bowie high’s low- performance on 10th grade standardized tests lead then- superintendent lorenzo garcia to cheat. although legally school board can still tied bonuses to good test scores — many around the country have dropped that, including episd. but now, if a school tests poorly …. the punitive measures are not going to be there. ..such as tying teacher’s jobs to how well their students tested. congress decided in 2002 to become our super- school board and its become a disaster. while the federal government is still involved– satisfying democrats– more control goes to the state, school and parents– a change republicans were pushing for. i think that for a parent you’re not going to feel an immediate change… that will apply to our local schools. the big take away is — instead of everyone having to get a 100- percent — now states get to set their own academic goals. at this week’s winter meetings, the