House Republican Introduces Education Bill

The bill was the third to emerge from Congress in three days, following both Democratic and Republican versions in the Senate this week.

Mr. Kline, Republican of Minnesota, said he was “reducing the federal footprint” and had eliminated 70 programs previously financed under the law, which is an amendment to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Mr. Kline’s bill would remove all but the most basic requirements for states receiving federal money under programs intended to support schools and students from racial minorities and poor families as well as those learning English and students with disabilities.

Under Mr. Kline’s bill, states would continue to administer standardized tests in reading and math from third through eighth grade, and once in high school. And like the Senate versions, Mr. Kline’s bill adds science tests three times between third grade and the end of high school.

Schools would have to report test scores and show how different groups — including racial minorities, the disabled and the poor — perform on the tests. But states would have complete freedom to decide what should be on the tests and how to rate schools based on student scores.

The bill says that states must set academic standards but provides very little guidance beyond that. In a reference to the Common Core, standards for what children should learn in math and reading from kindergarten through high school that have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia, Mr. Kline said in a call with reporters that states were free to continue with those standards.

But, he said, “what I object to and continue to object to is the federal department virtually coercing states into it” by requiring “college- and career-ready” standards to qualify for grants and waivers releasing states from the most onerous conditions of No Child Left Behind, which mandated that all students reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014.

The bill requires states to administer teacher evaluations, but Mr. Kline said states would have “an enormous amount of latitude on what that system would look like.”

In a statement, Representative George Miller of California, and the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, said that Mr. Kline’s bill “turns the clock back decades on student achievement, equity and accountability in American public education. Our children, teachers and schools deserve more than ideology when it comes to fixing our nation’s education law.”

Mr. Kline said he was determined to move the bill out of the Education Committee this month.

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