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Daniel Platt named UGI Utilities chief financial officer

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King’s students inducted into Kappa Delta Pi honors society

<p>The controversial &#8220;No Child Left Behind&#8221; federal education bill may, like the plague-afflicted peasant in Monty Python&#8217;s &#8220;Spamalot,&#8221; be &#8220;not dead yet,&#8221; but it&#8217;s one coffin nail away and reports from Washington suggest the hammer has already been raised.</p><p>Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, voted in favor of a replacement bill Wednesday morning, then left the Senate floor &#8212; before the final 85-12 bipartisan approval had been tallied &#8212; for a teleconference to tout his successes in helping shape the new proposal.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure anyone thought we would reach this point at the beginning of this year,&#8221; Casey said of the bill dubbed the &#8220;Every Student Succeeds Act,&#8221; or ESSA. &#8220;I&#8217;m particularly proud of the achievements I was able to attain in the final legislation.&#8221;</p><p>The bill, expected to be signed by President Barack Obama, retains NCLB&#8217;s controversial mandates that all public school students take annual reading and math standardized tests in grades three through eight and once in high school, Casey said, but it gives states greater flexibility as to when tests are administered and what assessments can be used as substitutes.</p><p>Casey said he helped ward off efforts to change the formula for doling out federal &#8220;Title I&#8221; money intended to help low-income and at-risk students that would have cut more than $120 million in federal money coming to Pennsylvania.</p><p>Casey said &#8220;there were a lot of very angry exchanges&#8221; in the process leading to the final compromise bill, which passed the House last week by a similar bipartisan vote of 359-64.</p><p>In the end, he added, the compromise legislation will be better for Pennsylvania, including nearly $53 million in additional money for the state through a new grant for student support and academic enrichment.</p><p>Other pluses in the bill highlighted by Casey:</p><p>&#8226; More flexibility in the use of federal money, including for school-based mental health support, drug and violence prevention, enrichment course work, accelerated learning programs like Advanced Placement courses, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) classes.</p><p>&#8226; New grants to help states improve the quality and access of early-learning programs. Casey said the bill provides a fraction of what he feels Congress should spend on early learning, but that it was &#8220;the first early learning vote in a decade in the Senate.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226; Removal of federal pressure to use standardized test results in teacher evaluations.</p><p>&#8226; Gives parents of special needs children greater say in which tests are used to gauge the student&#8217;s progress. Area school district administrators have often complained special education students cannot be expected to perform on tests at the same level as other students.</p><p>&#8226; Provides money for &#8220;comprehensive support&#8221; of students still struggling even after &#8220;targeted support&#8221; has been given to boost academic success.</p><p>Signed into law by then-President George W. Bush with widespread bipartisan support, NCLB introduced the age of nationwide high-stakes testing: All public schools were mandated to administer annual math and reading tests, and to have all students score proficient or better by 2014.</p><p>As the 2014 deadline approached and it became clear the goals would not be met, the Obama administration began issuing waivers allowing states to adopt alternate methods of measuring student success. But the backlash against high-stakes testing grew, leading to the new bill.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not perfect,&#8221; Casey said, &#8220;but it does go a long way to providing states and school districts with certainty and support in preparing students.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Casey </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/web1_casey.jpg</photo0><caption0>Casey </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

‘No Child Left Behind’ mandate may be thing of the past as Sen. Casey touts new education bill’s value