Obama Signs Bi-Partisan Education Law To Rewrite, Shifting Power To States

The new law still requires standardized tests in grades three through eight and in high school, and the reporting of how all students do on those tests, but it gives states more authority.

The law replaces the current – and now mostly maligned – iteration of the act, the No Child Left Behind law, or its acronym, NCLB. “There is nothing more essential to living up to the ideals of this nation than to make sure every child is able to live up to their God given potential”. Overall, it brings us closer to letting states, local school districts, and educators like me focus on students and their success.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., one of the lead architects of ESSA, doesn’t see it that way. He praised Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who’s leaving his post this month & was present for the signing, for being “tenacious” within the job.

“Laws are only as good as their implementation”, he said. “It fits very well into what we’re already doing in our school district”. “So having that local control is really powerful”, said Louann Carlomagno, superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District.

The bill also provides billions to pre-school programs, as well as more money for science, technology, engineering and math for K-12, which Obama has been advocating for years.

But when that didn’t happen, he invited states to apply for waivers to get them out of the law’s most cumbersome strictures, in exchange to agreeing to Obama-favored reforms such as tying teacher evaluations in part to students’ test scores.

Without a waiver in place, failing schools that received Title I funding to serve low income students were obligated to set aside a fifth of their federal dollars for student transfers to non-failing schools or academic interventions like tutoring. Still, the new law encourages states to limit the time students spend on testing and diminishes the high stakes for underperforming schools.

Now, with the state still revising the API to take into account the new Common Core standards as well as a new curricular emphasis on college and career readiness, another layer of unknowns has been added to the accountability process. Franken’s bipartisan provision improves the educational stability of students in foster care by improving collaboration between child welfare agencies and state and local educational agencies. Writing on The Washington Post’s website Saturday, University of Washington teacher education professor Kenneth Zeichner took issue with language in Every Student Succeeds that he said promoted non-traditional and non-university teacher certifications as equivalent to a master’s degree in education.

In a media release, KNEA President Mark Farr said, “The dedicated professionals working in Kansas public schools continue to push for what’s best for all students”. States must submit their accountability plans to the Department of Education, which still has a limited oversight role.

“This bill upholds the core value that animated the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson, the value that says education, the key to economic opportunity, is a civil right”, Obama said. The administration offered grants through its Race to the Top program for states that adopted strong academic standards for students.