Governor Terry Branstad pushed through school reform in Iowa that is supposedly sweeping, but I fail to see the sweep in the bill.
It creates new leadership positions for teachers within schools, and that is supposed to be huge, but I am not sure why.
It does not mandate that teacher evaluations be tied to test scores, and that means the state dodged a bullet by doing the right thing. The state will study the issue, much to the disappointment of StudentsFirst.
I was sad to see that former Massachusetts Commissioner David Driscoll told Iowans that Massachusetts achieved high performance because of high-stakes exams.
He knows the improvement of Massachusetts’ public schools involved a huge new public investment, more than $1 billion, equalizing funding across the state; tough new exams for new teachers; a heavy investment in early childhood education; and strong curriculum standards (which have since been abandoned for the Common Core standards). To pick out only testing as the cause of the state’s improvement is misleading.
Homeschooling parents will be pleased to know that they will be allowed to teach driver education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://edworkforce.house.gov/studentsuccessact/
Just saw this. What is it?
From a cursory reading of the website I would say that the “Student Success Act” takes NCLB and recreates it on the state level, which would result in 50 different versions, one for each state.
None of the most heinous parts of NCLB are removed, they are simply left to ALEC and the state legislatures to regurgitate in new ways to end public education.
Removing the federal influence and power over schools may sound nice to libertarians and small-government republicans but this law simply transfers the most egregious parts of NCLB and RTTT to the state level, including VAM, increased charters and vouchers, continues to ignore the voices of teachers, and encourages ridiculous things like parent triggers.
A true Washington wolf in sheep’s clothing, with an opposite meaning name. Classic republican bait and switch.
Many teachers are also wondering how the leadership positions will help students. There is not yet any outline for what this might look like and it’s also optional for districts even to participate.
Not only can homeschool parents now teach their own children driver’s ed (while certified teachers must pay hundreds of dollars to get our own children certified), but they removed the requirement that holds homeschooled children accountable for taking tests to prove learning has taken place, and homeschooling parents may now also teach children who aren’t their own in their home as well. This doesn’t sit well at all with many educated teachers. We get told often about our need for improvement while parents with no training can basically run mini-private schools in their home with no regulation.