In 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act which created a new set of mandates for states in return for Federal funding for public schools. Participation in the ESEA / No Child Left Behind program was 100% voluntary - each state could determine whether the additional funding was worth the Federal mandates that would be placed on public schools. If states accepted the NCLB funding, they would be required to force every public school to give grade-level tests in grades 3-8 and the state would be required to rate the schools based on the students' test performance. This is frequently referred to as high-stakes testing.
In 2002, Texas decided to accept the Federal funding and the new mandates attached to the funding. This gave the Federal government unprecedented control over Texas public schools.
Amazingly, this decision was made without a single vote in the Texas legislature!
I believe a decision of this magnitude should not have been made without a formal vote in the state legislature and the issues as important as state required standardized testing should be made by the state legislature, not by Congress.
Please join me in asking the Texas legislature to stop participating in the ESEA / ESSA program (formerly No Child Left Behind). The additional funding (less than 3% of the overall education budget) is simply not worth the loss of control of our public schools.
