ESEA Reauthorization Update: Conference Committee Is Already a Done Deal
Well, the House and Senate conference committee met for 90 minutes on the morning of November 19, 2015, and they’re already done. The full text of what is now being called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is still not available to the public and will not be until November 30, 2015. However, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) idea of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and its federally-derived, punitive list of “interventions” ( which included firing faculty, turning school over to the state, or converting to a charter school) are out. Still, with ESSA, states are required to intervene (not sure how this “intervention”is qualified in the language of the bill) in the bottom five percent of schools (likely defined by test scores and/or graduation rates), in schools with high dropout rates (not sure of the definition of “high”), and in schools with some group of students consistently underperform (likely on standardized tests).
ESSA also retains language banning the federal government from mandating Common Core. ESSA also apparently includes funding for afterschool programs, STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) education, and pre-K,
Here are details regarding the amendments that were approved in the lightening-round conference committee meeting:
- an amendment by Rep. Thompson (R-PA) requiring the Institute of Education Sciences to study on the effectiveness of the four Title I funding formulas;
- an amendment by Sen. Enzi (R-WY) requiring the Department of Health
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