38 Civil Rights, Disability, Business, and Education Organizations Oppose House ESEA Proposal

Washington, D.C. – Today, 38 organizations – representing a broad cross-section of civil rights, business, disability, and education organizations – publicly released a letter sent yesterday to House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline “firmly opposing” a proposal to rewrite Title I and other parts of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Many of these organizations also joined together in November 2011 in declining to support the Harkin-Enzi bill in the Senate.

The organizations oppose the draft Student Success Act because “it abandons accountability for the achievement and learning gains of subgroups of disadvantaged students who for generations have been harmed by low academic expectations. The draft also eliminates performance targets, removes parameters regarding the use of federal funds to help improve struggling schools, does not address key disparities in opportunity such as access to high-quality college preparatory curricula, restricts the federal government from protecting underprivileged students, and fails to advance the current movement toward college- and career-ready standards.”

See the press release on the Leadership Conference website HERE.