Education

• Places educational authority back into the hands of students and parents, as well as local educational officials, who work daily to ensure students are ready to meet the challenges of the 21st century workforce.
• Begins to turn the key and unlock decades of failed policies, including “No Child Left Behind” and Common Core.
• Reasserts the importance of local control by allowing states to withdraw from participation in Common Core and gives parents the autonomy to opt their children out of standardized assessments. 

“Rep. Loudermilk believes the passage of the Student Success Act moves us in the right direction toward restoring power back to the states and allowing parents to choose what’s best for their children. Since no child is the same, parents and local school districts should have the flexibility to cater educational standards to the specific needs of each child. Students deserve better than an alphabet soup of federal mandates that remove parental and student control and require students to comply with nationalized testing standards."

“With an added amendment, this educational policy will be re-evaluated again in 2019, which will give Rep. Loudermilk and fellow House members’ time to work on further educational reforms to ensure every child has the opportunity to succeed. While this isn’t the perfect bill, Rep. Loudermilk believes this Act will begin to restore the states’ role in education and give parents and students the ultimate say over their educational decisions.”

A PLUS Act, H.R. 3421 (Cosponsor)

• Allows each state to receive federal elementary and secondary education funds on a consolidated basis and manage the funds to advance the educational policy of the state
• Instructs states to submit to the Department of Education a declaration of intent no less than every five years.
• Permits states to use such funds for any educational purpose permitted by state law, but must make certain assurances that they will use fiscal control and fund accounting procedures, abide by federal civil rights laws, advance educational opportunities for the disadvantaged, and use federal funds to supplement rather than state supplant funding. 
• Each declaration state shall: (1) inform the public about its student achievement assessment system; (2) report annually on student progress toward the state's proficiency standards by specified student groups; and (3) provide for the equitable participation of private school children and teachers in the same manner as provided for under current law.

Local Control of Education Act, H.R. 524 (Cosponsor)

• Amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to prohibit the federal government from directly or indirectly mandating, directing, controlling, incentivizing, or conditioning federal support on a state's, local educational agency's (LEA's), or school's adoption of: the Common Core State Standards, any other academic standards common to a number of states, or any statewide or nationally recognized content standards; or any assessment, instructional content, or curriculum aligned to, or based on, specific academic standards.