Despite its good intentions of ensuring that no American student falls short of academic mastery in K-12 education, the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act contained at its root an untenable equation: that all schools – and therefore all students – would demonstrate “adequate yearly progress” until, eventually, all students were demonstrating 100 percent proficiency in all subject areas. Conceptually, that goal is a worthy one; practically, it is neither attainable nor particularly fair.
That tenet was NCLB’s fatal flaw that percolated through the measure’s provisions, which carried sanctions for low-performing schools over time, as well as limited resources for addressing peripheral but fundamental socioeconomic factors that influence educational outcomes. These flaws plagued the measure’s effectiveness, and Congress has, until Wednesday, failed to update the country’s education policy since NCLB expired in 2007.
With President Barack Obama’s signature, the Every Student Succeeds Act remedies that policy gap, complete with increased flexibility for states and districts to meet academic standards for all their students.
Since NCLB expired, states and the federal government have been adjusting their respective policies, both to address the bill’s shortcomings and ensure that schools are accountable for their students’ proficiency. In practical terms, that meant 43 states received waivers from NCLB’s mandates in exchange for providing “state-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity and improve the quality of instruction,” according to the U.S. Department of Education. That relationship is now embodied in federal law under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
In it, the U.S. Department of Education insists that states adopt rigorous academic standards for math, language arts and science, and compels states to test their students on proficiency in these arenas a prescribed number of times. The standards, curricula and testing instruments used are up to the states – provided these various educational elements are up to federal snuff in terms of their rigor, accountability and reliability.
While this has been the de facto system for most states over the past several years, ESSA ensconces it as the law of the land, ensuring that the federal government cannot, will not and must not impose its educational standards on states. Nevertheless, if states choose Common Core, for example, as the set of standards they wish to require their students to meet, that is fine too.
The Every Student Succeeds Act also hands to states the responsibility for fixing under-performing schools, placing the onus on states to develop a plan, using evidence-based methods, to remedy problem programs. The bill provides federal grants to assist in this endeavor, and requires states and districts to monitor and report on progress. That is actionable accountability that allows schools, districts and states to access the resources needed to address challenges that might extend far beyond school walls. The bill does this by expanding funding options to support rural schools, encouraging communitywide needs assessments to target funding to specific regions, and support for states and districts to provide resources and services to homeless students.
Each of these provisions empowers states to craft their own education policies, with the overall expectation that those policies produce students ready for higher education or the workplace. That standard is the great equalizer, and setting a high bar with support for reaching it is the federal government’s job.
The Every Student Succeeds Act is long overdue, but a significant bipartisan achievement warranting celebration nonetheless.
