OPINION: Ensuring every Montana child achieves

My mother had an unshakable faith in the power of public education.  With her encouragement, the first job I took after college was teaching at my childhood elementary school.

I have been actively involved in public education my entire life — as a student, teacher, school board member, parent, grandparent and now a U.S. senator.

So when the Senate had the chance to undo some of the damage caused by the No Child Left Behind Act, I was proud to stand with a bipartisan group of 81 senators and overhaul this broken system.  That’s why I voted for the Every Child Achieves Act last week.  

This bill reforms education policy for the first time in 13 years — affecting millions of American families.

While I don’t agree with everything in the bill, it’s a big step forward.

Most importantly, the bill returns decision making to the local level, giving school boards, teachers, and parents control over students’ education.

The bill also moves us away from using testing as the primary measure of a student’s performance — another No Child Left Behind policy that failed.

No Child Left Behind assumed that classrooms in Livingston are the same as classrooms in Los Angeles, and that success in school meant passing a standardized test. We know that’s not the case.  

The Senate’s bill acknowledges that Washington doesn’t have all the answers when it comes to public education.

It also builds on the Schools of Promise initiative that has worked in Montana to put some of our poorest-performing schools on the right path.

Under the leadership of Superintendent Denise Juneau, Montana has an innovative approach to improve the state’s lowest-rated schools, attract and retain better teachers, and encourage community members to be more involved in their children’s education. That state-based model is strengthened by the Every Child Achieves Act.

While this bill is certainly an improvement over No Child Left Behind, the Senate missed an opportunity to responsibly reduce the number of federally required tests. Under No Child Left Behind we’re testing our kids too much. The level of testing currently required is choking out creativity and innovation in the classroom.

A fourth-grade teacher in Billings recently told me that her students spend over four weeks a year taking standardized tests. That’s time that teachers and students could spend teaching and learning.

That’s why I offered an amendment that would’ve required schools to test once per subject in elementary school, middle school and high school. If states or school districts want to test students more, they can. My amendment didn’t get a vote but I will keep fighting to reduce the testing burden.  

Our schools should not merely be data warehouses where we collect statistics on every student. Instead, we should make sure that our students love learning so they continue to learn even after they graduate and enter the work force.

We should make sure they have the same appreciation for education that my mother had.

That’s how we give the next generation the world-class education they need.

Jon Tester, a Big Sandy Democrat, is Montana’s senior U.S. senator. He is a former school teacher and school board member.