Roberts’ education bill advances in Senate committee

U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts’ (R-KS) bill to stop the federal government from interfering with state and local education decisions on academic standards was approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education and Pensions (HELP) on Thursday.

Roberts’ bill was included in the chairman’s markup of the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Earlier this year, Roberts introduced the Learning Opportunities Created At the Local Level Act, intended to preserve state education independence by forbidding the federal government from pressuring states to adopt education standards such as Common Core.

“I want to thank the chairman for including my language in the bill before us today because I firmly believe it will prohibit the (Obama) administration from finding additional ways to promote a state’s adoption of Common Core,” Roberts said. “My legislation would strictly forbid the federal government from intervening in a state’s education standards, curricula and assessments through the use of incentives, mandates, grants, waivers or any other form of manipulation. A state will now be free from federal interference in how to decide whether or not to use Common Core or any other type of academic standard.”

The bipartisan Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 now will go to the full Senate for a debate and vote.