LOCAL Level Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Learning Opportunities Created At Local Level Act or the LOCAL Level Act - Expresses the sense of Congress that state and local prerogatives over elementary and secondary education need to be preserved.
Amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to prohibit any federal officer or employee from directly or indirectly, through grants, contracts, or other cooperative agreements under the ESEA:
mandating, directing, or controlling a state's, local educational agency's (LEA's), or school's specific instructional content, academic standards, assessments, curriculum, or program of instruction;
incentivizing such an entity's adoption of any specific instructional content, academic standards, assessments, curriculum, or program of instruction;
mandating a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under the ESEA; or
conditioning the availability of financial support on a state's, LEA's, or school's adoption of any specific instructional content, academic standards, assessments, curriculum, or program of instruction, even if such conditions are specified under any other Act.
Prohibits any funds provided to the Department of Education under the ESEA from being used by the Department directly or indirectly, through grants, contracts, or other cooperative agreements, to endorse, approve, develop, require, or sanction any elementary or secondary school curriculum.
Prohibits conditioning any state's receipt of ESEA assistance on the approval or certification of its academic standards by the federal government.
Includes in the prohibition against the use of ESEA funds on federally sponsored testing and testing materials such use on any assessment or testing materials aligned to the Common Core State Standards or any other academic standards common to a significant number of states. Prohibits the use of Race to the Top funds, provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, on such aligned assessment or testing materials.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on January 30, 2014. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on January 30, 2014: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 113th Congress (2013-14), 296 of the 9,091 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 3.3 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
PAT ROBERTS (R-KS) introduced it on January 30, 2014, and 1 member has since signed on as a cosponsor.
They are 1 Republican.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on January 30, 2014, 4606 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 4606 days ago, on January 30, 2014.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 113th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2015 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers