ESEA Reauthorization – Ramming Through a Bad Deal for America’s Children
The following is an open letter to members of Congress:
Dear Member:
A secretive, “smoke-filled room” process that excluded parents of millions of public schoolchildren and the vast majority of their elected representatives has resulted in revisions to the Senate and House ESEA reauthorization bills. The final version of the compromise bill (dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA), released at 9:30 AM on November 30, is 1,061 pages long and confirms that ESSA must be defeated.
More than 200 grassroots groups and experts across the nation have expressed their adamant opposition to any ESEA reauthorization based on the House and Senate bills. Nothing in the final bill lessens that opposition. Attached are comments about what the draft ESSA says on certain key issues: standards (including so-called restrictions on the Secretary’s power), assessments and, from Dr. Karen Effrem, preschool. These are only a few of the many deficiencies that make this bill absolutely unacceptable to millions of American parents.
A House vote is tentatively scheduled to take place in the next two or three days.This is absolutely unacceptable. Congressional leadership appears to be replicating the Obamacare debacle in the realm of education. No bill that is over 1,000 pages long should be passed without, at a minimum, sufficient time to analyze and understand it.
Congressional leadership should allow the American people at least one week per every hundred pages to examine ESSA and make their views known to their senators and representatives. Anything less would show that leadership wants to ram this bill through quickly, before the people have time to read and understand it. We are confident that Speaker Ryan, having already expressed his intent to improve transparency in the House, will allow sufficient time for review of this reauthorization.
We are also confident that once you understand these provisions and realize ESSA ensnares even more children in a web of highly progressive, federally dictated education policy, you will oppose this bill.
This bill MUST be voted down. While much of the Common Core system with its associated tentacles was implemented via regulatory fiat without congressional vote or oversight, a vote for this bill will be seen as your affirmation of all that is wrong with federal interference in education. This system is harming students, teachers, school boards, local districts, and states.
Thank you for your concern for the children of America and for your consideration of this letter.
Sincerely,
Emmett McGroarty
Director, APP Education
Problems with ESEA Reauthorization Conference Report:
Editor’s note: The information in the next two sections was complied by McGroarty, Jane Robbins and Erin Tuttle.
Regardless of Supposed Limitations on the Secretary’s Power to Impose Standards, the Bill Requires the Federal Government to Evaluate and Approve Standards that Must Meet Alignment Requirements
Although the reauthorization appears to prohibit the Secretary from dictating state standards, that ESEA Reauthorization – Ramming Through a Bad Deal for America’s Children | Truth in American Education: