ESEA saga. Today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) hosted the hearing they promised Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., last month during the mark-up of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA). In all, 10 witnesses, including one teacher and one lead teacher (the others were administrators, state leaders, or outside experts), provided testimony during the two-hour session. Continue Reading »

Square one. The New York Times editorial board criticized federal lawmakers’ attempt at reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) Act, which earned committee approval last week. The editorial says the draft scales back too much, in terms of assessments and accountability, and it urges committee leaders to “go back to the drawing board.” Education Sector’s Anne Hyslop warns of Continue Reading »

ESEA mark-up aftermath. The reauthorization chatter continued this morning via tweets and blog posts. Eduwonks weighed in, betting on the bill’s chances of passage and nit-picking at amendments pushed into the bill during yesterday’s 12-hour session. Education Sector’s Mary Nguyen also cleared up that itty bitty confusion about early college high schools. The next order of business is a hearingContinue Reading »

Photo Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Yesterday, you approved an amendment sponsored by Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) to ensure postsecondary credits earned through early colleges would be earned “at no cost to students or their families.” This ensures low-income students would have free access to early colleges as part of the new Pathways to College grant program in theContinue Reading »

Senators in the HELP committee moved the ESEA bill out of the committee, just before 9 p.m. with a 15-7 vote. Sens. Mike Enzi, Mark Kirk, and Lamar Alexander voted with the Democrats.

The HELP committee will reconvene next on Nov. 8 for a hearing, as agreed to earlier in the day to appease Sen. Paul.

We gave you a rundown of the approved amendments from the morning session earlierContinue Reading »

ESEA continues. A number of amendments have been approved – and ditched – during today’s Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee meeting. At the time we posted this, senators continued to push through the stack of amendments still pending. An official count hasn’t been confirmed, although Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., did acknowledge that he cut his offers down to “seven or eigContinue Reading »

UPDATE: Approved amendments. The HELP committee is on lunch break, but here’s a rundown of the amendments that were approved this morning during discussion of the ESEA reauthorization:

1. An amendment from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, which exempts Native American teachers from highly-qualified requirements. The amendment, she said, is intended to help ensure that indigenous languages Continue Reading »

UPDATE: After a brief recess, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., withdrew his objection to the committee meeting, in exchange for a hearing that will be held before the ESEA bill goes to the Senate floor.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said that hearing is tentatively scheduled for Nov. 8. He also asked senators to clear their schedules today and potentially tomorrow, as they can now meet all day to consiContinue Reading »

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., repeats Wednesday’s act by objecting to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee, using the two-hour rule. The rule allows for senators to object to meetings that last more than two hours while the full Senate is in session. Today, senators will continue to consider amendments to the Elementary and Second Education (ESEA) Act until noon, asContinue Reading »

Saga: The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee meeting on the ESEA reauthorization was cut short this morning by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who objected by using a procedural, rarely used, two-hour rule. The rule does not permit committees to meet for more than two hours on days when the Senate is in session. Of the 144 amendments on the table, two and a half were conContinue Reading »