Put the brakes on the ESEA reauthorization bill
The ESEA reauthorization bill was released on Monday, November 30th. The bill is over 1,000 pages long and is scheduled for a vote this week on the House floor. It is not possible for citizens to properly review and vet this bill in just a few days.
Please call your Congressperson and ask that a vote on the bill be delayed at least 60 days.
There are other reasons to put the brakes on this bill and Nancy Bailey clearly describes many of those issues in her piece:
Arne Duncan and others are bragging that both political parties get along when it comes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization. It is one big happy family when it comes to education. There was bipartisan agreement over No Child Left Behind too, and look what a colossal disaster that was.
Now, with the reauthorization in full swing, there are groups that are for, groups that are against, and groups that were for, but are now against. And then there is the occasional reminder that ESEA was once meant to help disadvantaged children get a chance to catch up in school. Victoria Young has written a lot about ESEA and it is worth checking the subject out on her blog. Here is one of her posts about it.
I find the ESEA reauthorization ambiguous and difficult to decipher. I just write here about a few concerns. If you want to debate anything, or feel inclined to tell about something I left out, feel free to do so. Much is being written about the reauthorization. But because there is so much confusion, and concern, I support stopping the passage of this bill in its current form.
Twitter #StopESEA or #SlowDownESEA and call President Obama at 202-456-1111 and Congress at 202-224-3121/225-3121.
Here are my specific concerns with the reauthorization of ESEA, some of which I derived from Education Week articles, A Summary and Call to Action from the American Superintendent’s Association, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), and the National Association of Education for Young Children (NAEYC).
What’s In a Name?
I personally don’t like the name Every Child Achieves Act. It sounds suspiciously like an updated version of No Child Left Behind.
It’s an Improvement but Not Great
There are many involved in education who claim the bill isn’t perfect but it is the best that can be done—the “we need something” excuse. Like Frederick Hess, the director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, who said, it’s clearly a profound improvement over the status quo and if this does not make it through it’s not like a better, leaner alternative is going to get enacted (Klein. Ed. Week Nov. 13, 2015).
I disagree and so do many others. Why settle on mediocrity or a lousy bill? Why claim it’s the best that can be done when it could be better?
Testing: States and Local School Districts Get their Way
There is much talk about rolling back the federal government’s influence, but one can find plenty of corruption at the state and local levels too. I see no triumph in governors being given more responsibility for school reform. The states have driven draconian Put the brakes on the ESEA reauthorization bill | Seattle Education:
