Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a significant education reform law enacted on December 10, 2015, under President Barack Obama. This legislation marked a shift in K-12 education policy by transferring much of the power and responsibility for school performance and accountability from the federal government to individual states. ESSA was developed as a bipartisan response to the limitations of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which had been criticized for its stringent measures and punitive consequences for underperforming schools.
While ESSA maintains federally mandated standardized testing, it eliminates the harsh penalties associated with poor performance, allowing states greater autonomy in setting their accountability goals. States are now required to submit their performance frameworks to the Department of Education for approval but have the flexibility to design their own assessments and improvement strategies. The law emphasizes a more holistic approach to education, valuing various metrics such as graduation rates alongside test scores. However, concerns remain regarding the potential for reduced federal oversight in addressing educational inequities, a foundational goal laid out in the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. As educators and policymakers continue to evaluate ESSA's impact, discussions about balancing state control with federal accountability and equity remain central to the ongoing conversation about public education in the United States.
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a reform law that shifts power and responsibility on issues of school performance and accountability from the federal government to the states. It reduced the federal role in K–12 education for the first time since the era in the 1980s under the administration of President Ronald Reagan. ESSA was a bipartisan measure that preserved federally mandated standardized testing but eliminated punitive consequences for states and school districts that performed poorly.
ESSA, which President Barack Obama signed into law on December 10, 2015, is a revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), which outlined the federal government's role in education from kindergarten through twelfth grade. ESSA replaced the previous revision of the ESEA, called the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), that had been implemented in 2002 during the George W. Bush Administration. ESSA leaves most accountability goals to the jurisdiction of the states.
Background
The ESEA is a piece of legislation that became law under President Lyndon Johnson during the civil rights era. The law gave federal money to the states to fund education and tried to make education accessible to all students. Expiring every three to five years, the law must be reapproved by Congress at regular intervals.
On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law a revision of ESEA, the NCLB, saying, "The fundamental principle of this bill is that every child can learn, we expect every child to learn, and you must show us whether or not every child is learning." NCLB was a bipartisan bill whose authors included Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA). The bill received overwhelming support in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
NCLB called for yearly assessments of student performance, usually accomplished through standardized tests, in mathematics and English language arts in grades three through eight and an additional assessment in these subject areas in high school. In addition, it demanded student assessment in a science curriculum one time in elementary, middle, and high school. An important goal of NCLB was to make sure that all students showed progress on the annual assessments—in other words, that "no child" was being "left behind." Thus, the law made school districts analyze assessment results and other measures for minority subgroups to ensure that they demonstrated improved performance each year. State leaders and educators in many states found these goals to be impractical, however, so some sought other means for showcasing their schools' success.
NCLB did not identify any national education standards. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), an initiative detailing what K–12 students should know in English language arts and mathematics, originated from a state-led, rather than federal, push to identify particular teaching goals and methods. NCLB set policy but did not spend money directly, instead relying on annual spending bills. Originally, the law set aside a maximum of $32 billion, but Congress never passed funding for the full amount.
Under NCLB, states desiring a portion of the federal education money had to improve schools with low assessment scores. Schools that were unable to adequately improve test scores after five years were required to comply with at least one of the following four measures: terminate the employment of administrators and teachers, convert to charter schools, implement longer school days or years, or shut down the schools permanently.
Overview
In 2007, NCLB was up for renewal, but Congress never officially reauthorized it. While data suggested that NCLB improved some math scores, particularly for disadvantaged student communities, the law failed to meet its overall goals, leading to bipartisan consensus that a new bill must be developed. Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) joined with House representatives John Kline (R-MN) and Bobby Scott (D-VA) to lead sponsorship for the ESSA bill, which passed overwhelmingly in both the House and the Senate. On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed the ESSA bill into law.
Unlike NCLB, ESSA allows states to determine their own accountability goals. Although the Department of Education is no longer directly involved in the development of accountability goals, states do have to present their goals to the Department of Education for approval. The law sets broader parameters defining what accountability goals need to incorporate, and test data and graduation rates are given more value than other, more subjective metrics. ESSA is the first iteration of the ESEA since the 1980s to return oversight for education to the states, a move that pleased many conservatives. ESSA, more so than NCLB, gives states less stringent guidelines and more autonomy to design holistic frameworks to improve student outcomes. States can choose whether to utilize ESSA determinations relating to targeted support and improvement as their summative determinations or choose to design and implement their own assessments.
Additionally, ESSA gives states an open time line for student attainment of English language proficiency while requiring states to take into account initial student proficiency levels when setting individual long-term goals.
According to Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers at the time of the bill's signing, as quoted in the New York Times, ESSA "ensures that the federal government can no longer require […] tests as a part of teacher evaluation." While some have seen this as helpful, others, including civil rights groups, have voiced apprehension that curbing federal jurisdiction decreases the US government's ability to address discrimination concerns in the nation's public school system, a goal that was inherent in the original 1965 ESEA law.
In terms of curriculum, ESSA does not require CCSS adoption. ESSA does not allow the Education Department to issue opinions or preferences regarding curriculum adoption. In terms of school support and improvement and data reporting, ESSA is more precise than NCLB on which schools require intervention but less precise in terms of prescriptive measures. Schools that fail to improve using the metrics designed by their respective states can be subject to state takeover. These include schools at the bottom 5 percent of assessment scores, high schools with a graduation rate below 67 percent, or schools where subgroups regularly fail to show any marks of progress. Each state determines its course of action at that juncture. Hypothetically, a state could decide to follow the former NCLB prescribed course of action and fire principals and teachers or turn the school into a charter. Districts could also allow for public school choice in cases of low-performing schools, giving priority transfer to students with the most need.
While the bill was bipartisan, some lawmakers opposed to the federal government playing too large of a role in education accountability took issue with the final ESSA implementation rules published by the Department of Education in late 2016. Using the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers voted in 2017 to overturn these accountability regulations, which had provided implementation clarification pertaining to school rating requirements, school intervention procedures, and student participation in assessments. Those opposed to the regulations saw them as another form of federal overreach, while those in favor argued that they had actually allowed for flexibility and expressed concern that effective, equitable application of the ESSA would be weakened. Into the early 2020s, commentators in the education field continued to debate the impact of the ESSA, specifically, and federal education reform in general.
Bibliography
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"Education Department Releases Final Regulations to Promote a High-Quality, Well-Rounded Education and Support All Students." US Department of Education, 28 Nov. 2016, www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/education-department-releases-final-regulations-promote-high-quality-well-rounded-education-and-support-all-students. Accessed 29 Nov. 2016.
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Ujifusa, Andrew. "With White House Backing, Senate Overturns ESSA Accountability Rules." Education Week, 9 Mar. 2017, www.edweek.org/policy-politics/with-white-house-backing-senate-overturns-essa-accountability-rules/2017/03. Accessed 10 Sept. 2024.