Obama to sign education law rewrite; power shift to states

The No Child Left Behind era of USA education came to a close Thursday morning as President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act into law.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind education law that axes the most stringent restrictions and harshest punishments imposed on schools whose students don’t pass certain standardized tests.

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, students will still be required to take statewide reading and math exams, a key feature of No Child Left Behind.

Calling the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act “a Christmas miracle”, Obama said the law would give states more flexibility in raising student achievement while maintaining a federal role for ensuring that all students have the opportunity to get a quality education.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, which received strong bipartisan support from both houses of Congress, will directly affect almost 50 million students and their 3.4 million teachers in the nation’s 100,000 public schools. “We expect them to live up to that, and that’s the promise of this bill”, Murray said after the vote.

The impact of ESSA’s passing has been seen as a victory for conservatives, who seek to limit the federal government from interfering with local and state control of education. “We can create and do the things we know are going to work better for our state, ‘” Capito said of the legislation on Thursday’s MetroNews “Talkline”. By including this simple, easy to understand outcome measure, parents and students will have the information they need to make informed choices about their education.

But states will decide what to do about the most troubled schools, those where test scores are in the lowest 5 percent, achievement gaps between groups of students are greatest, or where fewer than two-thirds of students graduate on time. It also continues to require schools annually report test scores and keep track of demographics including race, economic status and disabilities.

The legislation reduces the federal government’s control over the nation’s public schools by transferring decision-making power back to state and local governments in areas such as school performance and accountability. New York City depends upon the law’s Title I provisions to bridge the gap between children from low-income families and those whose families are more affluent. This legislation ends the Common Core mandate and eliminates Washington’s “one size fits all” approach to education.

The Common Core college and career-ready curriculum guidelines were created by the states but became a flash point for those critical of Washington influence in schools. Instead of mandating specific punishments, the law says that states and districts can intervene in underperforming schools by whatever “evidence-based” method they choose.

The law leaves it up to the states to develop and design their own evaluation systems.

“After years of bureaucratic top-down federal education policy, Congress has finally agreed on a plan that is more student-focused, not Washington-focused”, Lankford said.

“One of the reasons they have been leaving the classroom is that they are so disillusioned by test and punish”, Garcia said. 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.