McIntyre to testify next week before U.S. Senate committee about NCLB

Jim McIntyre

Federal leaders looking to revamp No Child Left Behind invited Knox County Superintendent Jim McIntyre to testify before them on Tuesday.

He is set to speak in front the U.S. Senate Committee on health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

“I am truly honored to be asked to testify . . . and I am so proud that the Senators have asked to hear about the innovation and student success happening in our classrooms in the Knox County Schools,” McIntyre said. “I also appreciate the opportunity to represent our educators, our community, and our state in the critically important discussion on reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – better known as No Child Left Behind.”

McIntyre will leave late Monday and return Tuesday afternoon. Knox County Schools will pay for the trip, which is expected to cost about $1,500.

When asked to provide insight into what the superintendent would talk about next week, KCS spokeswoman Amanda Johnson said at this point he is “soliciting input from a variety of sources including the Board of Education and looks forward to a robust discussion on innovation in education and reauthorization of ESEA.”

The trip will mark the second time in the past couple of years that McIntyre has testified in front of Congressional leaders.

He also appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education in February 2013 to talk about teacher evaluations and the Tennessee Educator Acceleration Model, or TEAM.

That trip, which KCS also covered, cost just over $2,100 and included airfare and a one-night stay at the Hyatt Regency in Washington D.C.

For weeks now, a number of U.S. Senators, including Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander have said No Child Left Behind, a sweeping education law that expired more than seven years, will be at the forefront of discussions.

Officials have struggled to balance accountability with testing, and what role the federal government should play.

Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has said he expects several more weeks of hearings and meetings, but hopes to pass a bipartisan bill by the end of February.