Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA | TheHill

Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA | TheHill:
Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA

 In December, I was honored to be at the White House when President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – the reauthorization of our nation’s education law that was passed with bi-partisan support in Congress and broad support from across the country. At the bill signing, President Obama called it “a Christmas miracle.” He recognized, as have many educators, that the one-size-fits-all approach of No Child Left Behind was no longer working for all students. The time had come to update our path for ensuring every child has access to a high quality education and graduates career and college ready, regardless of race, national origin or family income.

Two months after the enactment of ESSA, a new debate is beginning about the federal role as the new law is implemented. ESSA clearly provides more authority to states and local school districts to make key education decisions, and that’s a good thing. At Teach For America, we have seen first-hand that context matters—each community has its own rich history and assets that we must embrace as we work to empower and educate our students.

We also know that a high bar of achievement must exist for all students nationwide. Whether we are talking about schools in urban or in rural areas, in the Rio Grande Valley, where I grew up, or Phoenix, where I taught, we must hold that high bar constant. From classrooms on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to those in Newark, New Jersey, we know there are certain ways in which all kids need to be prepared. That is why there must be critical federal guardrails put in place to ensure that states’ accountability goals include student proficiency, English-language proficiency and graduation rates, for example. It’s also why states must be required by the federal government to demonstrate transparent and accurate subgroup academic performance as we aspire to reach educational equity and excellence for all.  

The future of tens of millions of students and billions of public dollars hang in the balance. While Federal government has a continued role in implementing ESSA | TheHill: