Refresher: What's in the Senate ESEA Rewrite, and Amendments to Watch For
As the U.S. Senate braces for debate on a bipartisan reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—which could get underway as early as Thursday—we thought it would be a good idea to freshen up on what's in the bill.
The compromise bill, which was brokered by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., and introduced in April, includes education policies that are attractive to both sides of the aisle.
Among other things, the measure would:
- Maintain the annual federal testing schedule;
- Provide some flexibility on testing through a limited pilot program that allows states and school districts to develop innovative assessments;
- Not include any provision allowing Title I dollars for low-income students to follow them to the school of their choice;
- Maintain the requirement that states report disaggregated data for subgroups of students;
- Require states to use disaggregated data in their accountability systems, but give them leeway to craft their own such systems;
- Require states to identify low-performing schools, but wouldn't be specific about how many schools states need to target;
- Maintain a dedicated funding stream for school improvement efforts
- Require states to establish "challenging academic standards for all students," but prohibit the federal government from playing a role in the process of states choosing standards;
- Specifically prohibit the federal government from pushing the Common Core State Standards;
- Eliminate the No Child Left Behind Act waiver requirement that states develop and implement teacher-evaluation systems (though they could if they wanted);
- List early-childhood education as an allowable use of funding for a broad swath of programs in the ESEA.
There are a lot of new policies this bill would implement, so be sure to read the more detailed run-down...Refresher: What's in the Senate ESEA Rewrite, and Amendments to Watch For - Politics K-12 - Education Week: