House Education Subcommittee Holds Hearing on ESSA Funding Rules
September 21, 2016
The U.S. House Education K-12 subcommittee held a hearing on the Dept. of Education’s proposed funding rules under ESSA.
- The subcommittee was led by Chairman Todd Rokita (R-IN), who criticized the proposed rules by stating that, “schools will be forced to make decisions based on getting the numbers to work—not on what’s best for their students—and the federal government will have unprecedented control over local education funding.”
- John Kline (R-MN), chair of the full House Committee on Education and the Workforce, agreed with Rokita, saying the Dept. of Education’s plan regarding spending comparability between high- and low-poverty schools was “an attempt to change a part of the law that Congress opted not to revise.”
- Marcia Fudge (D-OH) argued that the intent of ESSA was to provide education equity, and that changing the proposed rules would hinder that objective.
- Overall, of the witnesses who testified, three of the four were concerned by the Dept. of Education’s proposed rules in some capacity.