WASHINGTON - Seven of the nine Tennesseans in the U.S. House backed a long-awaited education-reform bill Wednesday that will keep in place federal testing requirements but will give states the freedom to decide how schools, teachers and students will be held accountable.
The House voted 359-64 to give its final approval to the legislation, putting Congress on the verge of scrapping the No Child Left Behind law enacted in 2001 under then-President George W. Bush.
The new proposal, a compromise worked out by the House and Senate, leaves some of the provisions of the 14-year-old law intact but dumps others that parents, educators and other critics have argued aren't working. The Senate is scheduled to give its final OK to the measure next week and send the proposal to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law.
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