Student Success Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chairman, I hate to throw cold water on the last
colloquy, but I think it is important to note as we debate this bill,
which never had the benefit of a public hearing or a single subcommittee hearing, is that the Federal mandate for annual testing does not change as a result of this law.

What does change regarding that testing requirement is that the
dedicated funding stream, which Congress at least had the decency to
pass back in 2002, that is eliminated.

What you are doing is you are maintaining a mandate and you are
eliminating the funding to pay for that mandate for testing. What we
are ending up with, for all the talk about reducing the Federal
footprint, is that we are doubling down on the Federal requirement that
States have to have annual testing in schools, which every Member in
this Chamber has heard about in loud protest over the last 13 years.

What this shows is that when the process is broken--and it was broken
in this case, no committee-subcommittee meetings, no hearings, rushing
it to the floor on a hyperpartisan basis, not one single Democratic
amendment was accepted at the committee during markup, that is what you
end up with, is a deformed bill, which should be defeated.

I urge in the strongest terms possible a ``no'' vote. Let's go back
and do this the right way.

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