Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)
ESSA replaced NCLB.
Both acts, NCLB and ESSA, were legislated by Congress and presented to the current U.S. Presidents for their signature—NCLB signed by George W. Bush in 2002 and ESSA by Barack Obama in 2015.
Still shell-shocked from years of the calamitous No Child Left Behind (NCLB) overreach, the perceived passiveness of ESSA (note the traditional wordsmithing, below) was a welcome reprieve.
However, ESSA’s substantive silence, together with NCLB’s disruption and overreach, brought a combined two-decade loss (and counting) for stellar K–12 student performance. Other than providing National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments of K–12 student performance across the states, the federal government and its U.S. Department of Education offered traditional bureaucracy.
Alyson Klein of Education Week (March 2016): “ESSA was signed into law on December 10, 2015. Replacing NCLB, it rolls back much of the federal government’s big footprint in education policy, on everything from testing and teacher quality to low-performing schools. And it gives new leeway to states in calling the shots.”
ESSA’s aims, published by the U.S. Department of Education:
- Increasing transparency: States are required to provide information to parents and the public about student performance, school funding, and school rankings.
- Setting high academic standards: All students are expected to be taught to high academic standards to prepare them for college and careers.
- Supporting local innovation: Local educators and leaders are encouraged to develop evidence-based interventions.
- Expanding access to preschool: ESSA supports programs that increase access to high-quality preschool.
- Holding schools accountable: Schools that are underperforming are expected to take action to improve.
- Providing flexibility for funding: States can use funds for career and technical education, transportation to higher performing schools, and other purposes.
- Defining a well-rounded education: The definition of a well-rounded education includes the arts and music, and Title I funds can be used for arts education.
Reaction by the states to ESSA and NCLB:
- No federal solutions—only bureaucratic responses
- Amid the ongoing reality that roughly half of U.S. students continue to score below minimum proficiency in core subjects such as reading and math on NAEP assessments, the states continue to try—as they always have—to do the best they can.