Onalaska superintendent happy to see No Child Left Behind plan replaced

A new federal plan has been approved by Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss that replaces No Child Left Behind.

Something Onalaska School superintendent Fran Finco is happy with.

“No child left behind was fraught with punishments,” he said. “What the new plan does, which is way more equitable, it’s full of support.”

The Every Student Succeeds Act is designed to lower achievement gaps.

“Closing that gap by 50 percent in the next six years,” Onalaska superintendent Fran Finco said. “So, every school district in Wisconsin has to do that, if they have a sub-group size of 20 or more. Lowest performing will have higher requirements.”

In other words, achievement gaps are cut in half in the next six years, if schools have more than 20 minority students.

Finco was pleased with the discussion beforehand.

“They have people from all the diverse groups you could imagine and they sat down and came up with a plan as to how to close the achievement gaps for all students and the focus being on equity,” he said.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was against the state’s version of the plan, saying there was not enough objectives that institutes vast change.