The bill greatly enlarges the federal role in public education, mandates annual testing of children in grades three to eight and provides tutoring for children in failing schools.
Mr. Bush said his major legislative accomplishments were a $1.3 trillion tax cut, passed in May, and an education bill, passed this month, that would greatly expand the federal role in public education, mandate annual testing of children in grades three to eight and provide tutoring for children in persistently failing schools.
The bill, a bipartisan compromise reached even as Congress was consumed by the events of Sept. 11, is to greatly enlarge the federal role in public education, mandate annual testing of children in grades three to eight and provide tutoring for children in failing schools.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill today that would dramatically extend the federal role in public education, mandating annual testing of children in Grades 3 to 8, providing tutoring for children in persistently failing schools and setting a 12-year timetable for closing chronic gaps in student achievement.
Since 2008, our master education mandates a special course Reflective Practice.
The city's Department of Education mandated the use of the two tests for admission to gifted programs beginning in 2008; before that, individual schools and districts each devised its own criteria.
But in the past session, Congress passed new election and education mandates and then failed to finance the new polling equipment and the rigorous educational testing.
In districts where property taxpayers have refused to make up state shortfalls, administrators have had to slash student programs and focus efforts on new education mandates.
Jane Briggs, a spokeswoman for the State Education Department, noted that "the vast majority of education mandates are required by state or federal law" and can be undone only through legislative action.
