Today, U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) supported two Congressional Rule Acts that would overturn the Department of Education’s teacher preparation and accountability rules.

“One-size-fits-all federal policies have proven plenty of times that they simply do not work,” Luetkemeyer said. “Over the last several years, the federal government has continued to increase its role in our students’ classrooms. Knowing these decisions are best left to parents and state and local education leaders, Congress recently passed the Every Student Succeeds Act to put an end to failed education policies and prohibit such federal overreach. Today the House voted to uphold the intent of this law and place states back into the driver’s seat for education standards. We must provide our local education leaders the flexibility they need to ensure that every child receives a high quality education.”

The Every Student Succeeds Act, which was signed into law in 2015, placed restrictions on the Secretary of Education’s ability to create new requirements and provided states greater authority to make decisions. Yet, in November, the Obama Administration released its Accountability and State Plan Regulation which included new provisions that expanded the law’s requirements and directly violated the law’s strict prohibition on overreach by the Secretary. Today’s bill ensures the Accountability and State Plan Regulation would have zero effect.

The Obama Administration issued new regulations to evaluate the effectiveness of teacher prep programs which requires states to track student learning outcomes and employment outcomes. The Teacher Prep Regulation ties eligibility for student aid to teacher prep program evaluations, stating programs that do not meet a state’s requirement for at least two of the previous three years will lose federal aid. Today’s bill ensures the Teacher Prep regulation would have zero effect.