WASHINGTON, D.C. – At a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) today said the U.S. Department of Education is still attempting to influence local education standards and decision making, despite specific prohibitions against federal control of such decisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law last year.

“As everyone is aware, ESSA has countless prohibitions explicitly stating that the federal government is prohibited from mandating, directing, controlling, coercing, or exercising any direction or supervision over academic standards that states develop or adopt, including Common Core standards,” Roberts said. “Unfortunately, in the implementation of ESSA, the administration has ignored these explicit instructions from the Congress.”

At issue is a Department of Education proposed ESSA regulation that requires states to “provide evidence” demonstrating that it has adopted challenging academic content standards. (proposed rule: 299.16)

Roberts questioned Secretary of Education John King about how the department would use this evidence and who would judge the standards.

The bipartisan ESSA states in Sec. 1005 (b) that each state “shall provide an assurance” that the state has adopted challenging academic standards.

Putting the department on notice Roberts said, “In my view, there is obviously a big difference between providing an assurance and providing evidence. I firmly believe this proposed regulation eviscerates the intent of Congress and ESSA.”

Roberts went on to tell the Secretary, “It is also a flagrant disregard for your commitment to me to respect the intent as well as the explicit prohibitions in the law during your nomination hearing.”

Roberts is an outspoken advocate of local education decision making. His legislation, the Learning Opportunities Created At the Local (LOCAL) Level Act was included in ESSA to preserve state education autonomy by explicitly prohibiting the federal government from coercing or incentivizing states to adopt education standards like Common Core.