On December 10, President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). On the following day, the U.S. Department of Education released a number of guidelines and resources (excerpted below from the December 11, 2015 ED Review) that public education officials will find useful in initiating planning activities for future school years.
"The ESSA includes many of the key reforms the Administration has called on Congress to enact and encouraged states and school districts to adopt in exchange for waivers offering relief from more onerous provisions of NCLB. It helps ensure educational opportunity for all students by:
- holding all students to high academic standards that prepare them for success in college and careers;
- ensuring accountability by stipulating that when students fall behind, states redirect resources into what works to help them and their schools improve, with a particular focus on the very lowest-performing schools, high schools with high dropout rates, and schools with achievement gaps;
- empowering state and local decision-makers to develop their own strong systems for school improvement based upon evidence;
- reducing the burden of testing on students and teachers, making sure that tests do not crowd out teaching and learning, without sacrificing clear, annual information parents and educators need to know their children are learning;
- providing more children access to high-quality preschool; and
- establishing new resources for proven strategies that will spur reform and drive opportunity and better outcomes for American’s students.
In further recognition of the ESEA’s legacy as a civil rights law -- upholding critical protections for disadvantaged students -- the ESSA holds schools to account for the progress of all students, prescribing meaningful reforms to remedy under-performance in those schools failing to serve all students; maintains dedicated resources and supports for students with disabilities, English Learners, Native American students, homeless children, neglected and delinquent children, and migrant and seasonal farmworker children; and keeps states and districts on task with the work they began this year to ensure all students have equitable access to excellent educators.
There is much to be figured out as the nation moves to implement the new law, but the White House and the Department have released a number of materials to help educate the public about the ESSA, including:
Many of these materials are posted on the Department’s ESEA web page, and additional materials will be posted as they become available. In the meantime, questions may be directed to ESSA.questions@ed.gov."