President Barack Obama has inked the Every Student Succeeds Act on December 10 into a law. The said big governmental reform is set to replace 2001' No Child Left Behind. The president said it will bring a huge impact to all 3.4 million teachers and 50 million public school students.
Most American lawmakers seem to agree that ESSA will indeed bring good tidings to the whole nation. They have touted that the new law will be a more flexible approach to student accountability and student testing. This will provide more authority to the specific state to fix or improve under-performing schools.
The first educational reformation made its debut in 1965, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The 32 pages act intended to ensure "equitable resources for the poorest students. Then after how many years, President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind. He calls it a "game changer", and indeed it did change the picture of education in America - but not that much.
Then along came President Obama's Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This allows states to develop their own degree of parent involvement, the courses offered, and school evaluation system. It is said to affect the power of the US education secretary, which the current one Arne Duncan, used relentlessly to increase governmental control of America's school. ESSA will make schools more independent in creating their own program or systems while it diminishes the authority of the future US education secretary.
ESSA is set out to develop the right balance between the respective roles of the federal, state, and local governments in formulation education policy. Unlike No Child Left Behind, which involved mandate goals handled down from above to school districts, ESSA strengthens local responsibility for improving schools. Wilson Area School District Superintendent Doug Wagner said that ESSA will not only help students but also the whole community per se. He said, "Local school districts, working with teachers, principals, parents and school directors will decide which evidence-based interventions and supports are needed to improve outcomes for their students."
Among ESSA's other tenets includes: test scores must be made public according to race, income, ethnicity, disability, and English Language Learner (ELL) status; states can choose how to intervene in its worst-performing (bottom 5%) schools; states can decide how to evaluate teachers, instead of those value-added measures based solely on student test scores, which graded even non-reading and math teachers; annual testing in math and reading for kids in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school.
ESSA's document fills 1, 016 and there's more to it. For now, Senators Murry and Alexander are planning to conduct at least three major oversight hearings on implementing ESSA.
Only time will tell if Every Student Succeeds Act is an improvement, more of the same, or even a step backward from No Child Left Behind. Concerns and oppositions were already fired, but as for now, it sounds good for the American family.
