If it looks like a voucher, Eric Cantor is all for it.

If it looks like a voucher, Eric Cantor is all for it.

Cantor argued this Title I portability amendment would make a huge difference for children who are caught in failing schools. But Miller argued that NCLB already allows those students to transfer to the school of their choice—and the vast majority don't bother to take districts up on that flexibility. "It's a decision that doesn't work for them because of lack of transportation in poor neighborhoods," Miller argued. He noted that Cantor had originally wanted to allow studentes to transfer to private schools as well and called the policy an "imitation voucher."

The House passed its "Student Success Act" by a 221 to 207 margin Friday. The bill's sequester-level funding remained intact, but some other provisions were changed; one amendment from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, which would allow disadvantaged students to change schools and take Title I funding with them, drew this debate between Cantor and Democratic Rep. George Miller before ultimately passing:A provision mandating particular forms of teacher assessment was scrapped , meanwhile.

Like most major legislation, the House and the Senate have vastly different bills revamping No Child Left Behind; on education, though, Democrats have a lot of lousy ideas, too. Where Republicans want to cut funding and abandon protections and funding for disadvantaged students, Democrats are happy to push unproven testing-based teacher assessment on states. And both parties emphasize testing, and reading and math as testable subjects, to the exclusion of other subjects and ways of learning.