WASHINGTON – Congressman Andy Barr released the following statement regarding passage of H.R. 5, The Student Success Act:
“As a father of two young girls, I am committed to ensuring that all our of children have the opportunity to succeed. That’s why I voted to get Washington bureaucrats out of Kentucky’s classrooms and empower local communities to fix our broken education system.
“The Student Success Act will put control back in the hands of the parents, teachers, leaders and local school districts who know our students better than the Obama Administration and give them the flexibility and freedom they need to best serve their student populations. By getting Washington out of the way, the Student Success Act will help ensure a brighter future for our kids.”
More information on H.R. 5, The Student Success Act:
- Reins in the Federal Department of Education by prohibiting the Secretary from forcing states to adopt specific academic standards and imposing extraneous conditions on state and school districts in exchange for a waiver of K-12 education law.
- Protects state and local autonomy over decisions in the classroom by removing federal bureaucrats’ authority to add new requirements to federal programs.
- Prioritizes state and local decision-making by scrapping the federally-dictated accountability and school improvement systems and the onerous Highly Qualified Teacher requirements, and empowering states to develop and implement individual systems that are more closely aligned with local priorities.
- Consolidates more than 70 federal K-12 education programs into a Local Academic Flexible Grant that school districts will use to support local priorities.
- Repeals federal funding requirements that arbitrarily restrict state and local policymakers’ ability to set their own budget priorities.