‘No child left behind’ catches up
The new 391-page Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; S.1177), the first major rewrite of federal education law in 14 years, has lists of provisions to impact children in myriad ways, including efforts on safe and healthy schools, many different behavioral issues, early childhood education, and homeless children. Signed on December 10, 2015, by President Barack Obama and, in great part, replacing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (H.R.1), the new Act is best known for eliminating some of the “high-stakes” testing requirements and for turning back much of decision-making authority to the states and local agencies.
There is much hope and anxiety about what states will do and how they will be held accountable. Also, there is still a lot of room for the US Department of Education (DoED) to affect the process through the regulations it will write. The DoED has already begun to gather information with public hearings in January.
Statistics indicate there is much to be concerned about. For example, the National Center for Educational Statistics says 33% of white high school seniors were proficient in mathematics in 2013. That compared with 12% of Hispanic seniors and 7% of black seniors. The gap was also huge for seniors whose parents were high school graduates versus those whose parents were college graduates: 12% versus 38%, respectively. There also were huge disparities in state performance: 34% of Massachusetts students scored proficient compared with 14% in West Virginia.
State control
It’s in that atmosphere that the new law takes major steps to turn back control to the states. It does away with the federal “adequate yearly progress” testing and reporting system and allows state accountability systems to identify struggling schools. States will submit a plan to the DoED, but the federal agency cannot force changes. It may only ensure the plan is consistent with the law.
States will be allowed to use measures of schools’ performance beyond test scores, including student engagement, advanced placement course work, and school climate and safety. The Business Roundtable, among others, expressed concerned that expansion of measures will allow the focus to move too far away from academics.
States will use state-determined methods to identify schools that need support and improvement. They are supposed to improve learning in at least the lowest-performing 5% of schools, public high schools that fail to graduate one-third or more of their students, and schools in which any group of students (such as by race or ethnic group) consistently underperforms according to the state’s measures.There still must be statewide annual tests in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and ‘No child left behind’ catches up | Contemporary Pediatrics:
