WASHINGTON (AP) — After years of failed efforts, the House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to sharply scale back the federal role in American education. But the bill would retain the testing requirement in the 2002 No Child Left Behind law that many parents, teachers and school districts abhor.
The legislation, approved 359-64, would return to the states the decision-making power over how to use students' test performance in assessing teachers and schools. The measure also would end federal efforts to encourage academic standards such as Common Core.
BOSTON – Asylum seekers who fraudulently claim persecution in their home countries may easily escape discovery by U.S. immigration authorities, according to a report from the investigative arm of Congress.
Agencies charged with ferreting out phony stories "have limited capabilities to detect asylum fraud," the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said in a study released Wednesday. While both Justice Department and Homeland Security agencies "have mechanisms to investigate fraud in individual applications, neither agency has assessed fraud risks across the asylum process, in accordance with leading practices for managing fraud risks."
