Congresswoman Martha McSally was the lone vote in Arizona’s Republican Congressional delegation to vote in favor of the conference report for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) on Wednesday evening.
The bill replaces the previous version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).
The Act passed in U.S. House of Representatives on a 359 to 64 vote. The conference report was just made public on Monday. Arizona democrat representatives Gallego, Grijalva, Sinema, and Kirkpatrick voted in favor of the Act.
A House version of the bill (H.R. 5, the Student Success Act) was considered on the floor of the House of Representatives, amended, and ultimately passed by the House. A similar process was used in the Senate to pass the Senate version of the bill (S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act) on the Senate floor.
With two separate versions of the bill passed by each House, a conference committee was created made up of members of both parties and both Houses of Congress to resolve the differences between the two bills.
According to ESSA critic, Kirsten Lombard, editor of Common Ground On Common Core, the Act was crammed through “with no transparency, no time to review, and no truth on the part of leadership in Washington.”
In her article; The Every Student Succeeds Act: More Programs and Federal Intervention in Pre-K and K–12 Education, Lindsey Burke listed the key common concerns with the ESSA:
The proposed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) contains a host of new programs—from preschool and civics to “family engagement,” among others. The 1,061-page proposal would also maintain high levels of spending and dozens of ineffective programs.
The ESSA does not allow states to opt out through the A-PLUS provision. The A-PLUS amendment is not part of this proposal.
The ESSA would maintain significant federal intervention in local school policy for years to come.
No votes to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965:
Amash
Babin
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Brat
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Buck
Chabot
Chaffetz
Clawson (FL)
Culberson
DeSantis
DesJarlais
Duncan (SC)
Farenthold
Fleming
Franks (AZ)
Gohmert
Gosar
Gowdy
Graves (LA)
Guinta
Harper
Harris
Hice, Jody B.
Holding
Huelskamp
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Jordan
Kelly (MS)
King (IA)
Labrador
Lamborn
Loudermilk
Love
Lummis
Marchant
Massie
Meadows
Miller (FL)
Mooney (WV)
Mulvaney
Palazzo
Palmer
Perry
Poe (TX)
Ratcliffe
Rogers (AL)
Rohrabacher
Rothfus
Salmon
Sanford
Schweikert
Smith (MO)
Smith (NE)
Stewart
Stutzman
Walker
Weber (TX)
Wenstrup
Yoder
Yoho