OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) - Teachers and administrators are pleased tonight after congress passed a bill Wednesday to change the way students and schools are assessed.
The Senate passed a massive education bill to replace the long-outdated No Child Left Behind law of 2002.
Part of the plan gives the people who work with students a bigger say in performance measures.
States and districts will now set their own standards and benchmarks for student performance. They'll also create their own plans to fix failing schools.
Some elements of No Child Left Behind will remain: There will still be standardized tests for students in grades three thru eight and again in high school but standardized test results won't be the only factor in determining if teachers are doing a good job.
Chris Proulx, President of the Omaha Education Association, called the change a boost for teachers working in chronically under-performing schools, “You're still going to have the necessary testing that progress is being made but we're not going to be waiting with this big, heavy hand to label everybody as a failure just because they're struggling to continue to make success.”
Both teachers and district leaders say it was time to move away from NCLB, “The district is pleased that The Congress has moved forward with the Every Student Succeeds Act, as the old NCLB was neither fair nor relevant since it had out dated and unrealistic measures," officials at Omaha Public Schools, the biggest district in the state, tell KMTV.
President Obama is expected to sign the bill Thursday.
