83R25933 BPG-D
By: Huberty H.C.R. No. 119
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act, currently termed the No Child Left Behind Act of
2001, is now more than five years past due, and the most recent
revision of the law was passed over 12 years ago; and
WHEREAS, The State of Texas, Texas school districts, and
Texas campuses need federal education policy that allows for state
and local control in order to best educate the five million
schoolchildren of Texas, a vast and varied group of young people who
will not succeed under a one-size-fits-all approach; and
WHEREAS, The current mandate to test every child every year
in grades 3-8 and again in grades 9-11 promotes teaching to the
test, and it has narrowed the curriculum, prevented the
implementation of efficiencies in state budgeting with regard to
testing and accountability, and caused local educational agencies
to dedicate an excessive number of days to standardized testing
that would be better spent educating students; and
WHEREAS, Both the U.S. House Education and the Workforce
Committee and the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions passed bills to reauthorize the current
education law during the previous Congress, and the house and
senate are equipped to debate their bills on the floors of their
respective chambers and ultimately to reauthorize the law; now,
therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 83rd Legislature of the State of Texas
hereby respectfully urge the United States Congress to rewrite the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act in order to lessen the
burden of over-testing and teaching to the test; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
the president of the Senate and speaker of the House of
Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.