A southern Illinois congressman and an area school official are behind the new national education law.
The Every Student Succeeds Act is designed to return a lot of control to the state when it comes to the local education system.
12th district congressman Mike Bost says the new law does not allow the federal government to threaten to withdraw funds or use other punishments against local schools.
"Because when you're educating someone in Carbondale or Murphysboro, it might be a little bit different than somebody in New York, L.A., or Chicago, or wherever."
Bost says federal control of schools doesn't work because local officials know what's best for their area. Regional Superintendent of Schools Matt Donkin says he agrees more local control is good. But, he says there are people who believe there must be some sort of national standard.
"There's always this tension though between having local control, but also as we compete internationally, and as business leaders have weighed in and have pushed education reform, wanting to make sure that there are some standards that you can compare students to and compare their learning to."
Donkin says public education is messy and finding a solution is a unique part of the relationship between the local, state and federal levels.
As far as the Illinois' results on the PARCC assessment test, Donkin says this new exam - using the Illinois Learning Standards and Common Core curriculum - establishes a baseline for the future. Plus, he says there were a lot of external distractions before students even took the test.
"You also had the issue as this was rolled out working through the technology issues, working through how the test was given, and then because there was so much noise around the time of the test taking, and was this really an important test to take and should you even be trying?"
Donkin says it appears PARCC will remain one of the state's assessment tests for students, at least for another year, because changes take time to implement.
Statewide, an average of 33-percent of students met or exceeded expectations on the PARCC test, which is designed to measure college and career readiness.
In this area, Carterville schools led the way in exceeding the statewide average at the high school, junior high and elementary school levels.
